VOLUME 34 NUMBER 26 DECEMBER 23, 2017-JANUARY 05, 2018 ISSN 0970-1710 WWW.FRONTLINE.

IN

P O L IT I C S COVER STORY L I T E R AT U R E
“The vengeance”, translation
Rahul Gandhi’s elevation
as Congress president 19 Close call of an Odia short story 96
Disqualification of
Sharad Yadav 124
The BJP survives an electoral scare in HISTORY
Gujarat by resorting to its time-tested
D I S AS T E R
politics of communal polarisation, but
the verdict destroys the Modi-Amit
Shah combine’s aura of invincibility. 4 Tipu Sultan in Malabar 99

O B I T U AR Y
Cyclone Ockhi and the
Shashi Kapoor:
tragedy in Kanyakumari 22
Stuff of dreams 105
When someone goes
Sukomal Sen:
missing 26
From worker to leader 108
E S S AY
I N S T I TU T I O NS
Ayodhya case:
Supreme Court on trial 29
Faith vs law 32

R I G HT T O I N F O R M AT I O N
Attempt to weaken RTI Act 39
Bihar Museum 110
E V E NT S
A nuclear conference SOCIAL ISSUES
in Moscow 44 Victims of intolerance 120
Russian reactors for
CRIME
Bangladesh 46
Tamil Nadu: Judicial blow
W O R L D A F FA I R S to casteism 126

COLUMN
R E L A T ED S T O R I E S C.P. Chandrasekhar:
Making merry on bitcoin 42
Checking the BJP’s juggernaut 9 Jayati Ghosh: Obscenity
Trump signs off on Jerusalem The caste factor 13 of hunger deaths 114
as Israel’s capital 50 Himachal Pradesh: Return of the BJP 16
DATACARD
Trump as Balfour 55 Dip in FDI growth 116
Left alliance wins Nepal 58
West Asia: Cracks in
the GCC 61 S C I E N CE N O T E B OO K 118
Yemen: Saleh’s last sigh 64
BOOKS 84
A R C HI T E C T U R E
L E T T E RS 129
On the Cover
Prime Minister Narendra Modi after casting his vote in Ahmedabad.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi campaigns at Bhatia village
in Saurashtra region.

COVER DESIGN: T.S. VIJAYANANDAN

Air Surcharge:
The making of New Delhi 67 PHOTOGRAPHS: VIJAY SONEJI
Colombo - Rs.20.00 and
Port Blair - Rs.15.00

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JANUARY 5, 2018 . FRONTLINE 3

 COV ER STO R Y

CLOSE CALL
The BJP survives an electoral scare in Gujarat by resorting to its
time-tested politics of communal polarisation, but the verdict destroys
the Modi-Amit Shah combine’s aura of invincibility.
BY V E N K I T E S H R A M A K R I S H N A N

FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 4

 SANDEEP SAXENA
C O N G R ES S P R E S I D EN T Rahul Gandhi arrives at Parliament House to
attend the winter session of Parliament as results of the Assembly
elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh start coming in.
S A J J A D H U S S AI N / A FP

F IN A N C E M I N I S T E R Arun Jaitley, BJP president Amit Shah, Home

Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj greet
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the party headquarters in New Delhi on
December 18.

THE MESSAGE BETWEEN THE LINES IN THE
results of the Assembly elections in Gujarat and
Himachal Pradesh was writ large on the office of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi, the national
capital, in the early hours of counting on December 18. In
stark contrast to the normal atmosphere that has
prevailed in the central office over the past two decades
on the day of counting in any election in Gujarat, there
was no festive mood that morning. All the ingredients of
the festivity that used to be on display on such days, such
as animated slogan-shouting, incessant bursting of fire
crackers and periodic distribution of sweets, were
conspicuous by their absence. The mood was pregnant
with disquiet and a sense of apprehension.
The early trends, wherein both the Congress and the
BJP were alternately taking the lead, added to this mood.
Even when it became clear, around noon, that the BJP
would retain Gujarat for the sixth term and capture
Himachal Pradesh from the Congress, party workers
gathered at the headquarters had to be goaded into
celebratory demonstrations.
The reasons for this uncharacteristic diffidence was
not far to seek. As some of the workers revealed to
Frontline, the triumph in both the States was not up to
the expectations generated in them by the projections of
senior leaders, including party president Amit Shah,
both during the campaign and even after polling was
over. Amit Shah had proclaimed that 150-plus seats were
a reasonable target for Gujarat and for Himachal
Pradesh it was 50-plus.
“We had expected at least 120 seats in Gujarat and a
minimum of 50 in Himachal Pradesh. But the Congress

5 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018


B J P W O R KE R S celebrate the party’s victory at “Kamalam”, the party office in Gandhinagar on December 18.
has performed much better in comparison to these
expectations. Of course, a victory is a victory, but we are
not able to gear ourselves into a high celebratory mood,” a
party worker who had come from Noida in Uttar Pradesh
told Frontline.
Some senior leaders, such as Seshadri Chari,
expressed a similar sentiment while participating in
television debates and admitted that the Congress had
come up with a reasonably good show, particularly in
Gujarat where it pushed down the BJP’s seat share
significantly as compared with the last Assembly
elections, held in 2012.
PEP TALK
By early evening, however, Amit Shah himself reached
the BJP headquarters and made an earnest attempt to
blow away the diffidence. Addressing a media conference
at the party office in the presence of party workers, which
was telecast live, he said that the results of the Gujarat
and Himachal Pradesh elections had shown that the
people had voted for “politics of performance and
development over dynasty and polarisation”. He added
that the BJP was not able to win the projected 150 seats in
Gujarat because the Congress played “caste-based
divisive politics” and “pulled down the standard of
political discourse”.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
VIJAY SONEJI
Joining Amit Shah later that evening, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi also sought to push this qualitative
analysis of the Gujarat elections, stating that the BJP had
striven, since 1995, to take the politics of the State beyond
caste divisions and that the Congress had unsuccessfully
tried to bring them back into vogue in the current
elections. Amit Shah, on his part, asserted that the BJP’s
vote share in both States had increased and that the party
was “confident that when we go into 2019 elections under
the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, we will once
again get people’s support”. Modiji has great visionary
plans for the youth and in 2022 all that will become a
reality, was his refrain.
Notwithstanding this pep talk, there were still some
BJP workers at the party headquarters who wondered
whether the party had been able to prove decisively the
claims made by Amit Shah in relation to the election
results. Their primary doubt was whether the party had
really advanced, even in terms of vote share, in
comparison with the percentage of votes it had garnered
in the last elections in both the States, namely the 2014
Lok Sabha elections. In the 2014 elections, the BJP’s vote
share in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh was 60.11 per
cent and 53.3 per cent respectively. Three years later, it
had become approximately 49 per cent in both Gujarat
and Himachal Pradesh. In comparison, the Congress’
6
vote share in Gujarat had increased from 33.45 per cent Janmabhoomi case to a period after the next Lok Sabha
to 42 per cent. In Himachal Pradesh, it had risen from elections in 2019. Aiyar’s comment was castigated by BJP
40.7 per cent to 42 per cent. “This trend is not at all leaders, including Modi, as one that pointed to the lower
heartening,” said some of the BJP workers from Noida. caste origins of the Prime Minister and Sibal’s appeal at
The analysis presented by Amit Shah and Modi about the apex court was portrayed as an attempt to play
the Gujarat results was being questioned also at the electoral politics with an issue as crucial as the Ayodhya
highest level of the party. Talking to Frontline, a veteran Ram Mandir, considered central to the Hindu sentiment.
leader and former Cabinet Minister, who has been The Pakistan angle was propagated even more
consistently sidelined by Modi and Amit Shah, was of the aggressively when Modi accused Aiyar and former Prime
view that while the statement about “politics of Minister Manmohan Singh of conspiring with Pakistan
performance and development winning over dynasty and to finish him politically and physically. Modi even said
polarisation” was great in terms of political rhetoric, it that “these conspirators” have issued a “supari” (contract
did not actually represent the victories in both the States. to liquidate) against him. Undoubtedly, all this added to
“Himachal Pradesh has an electoral tradition of the communal, sectarian and emotional quotient of the
alternating between the BJP and the Congress. So, that Gujarat election campaign.
was a given. But if we had not been able to bring in the
Hindutva element forcefully at different stages of the COMMUNAL POLARISATION
campaign, including by highlighting the ‘non-Hindu’ Mathew Vilayasseril, a pollster with over a decade of
entry of Rahul Gandhi into Somnath temple and experience, pointed out that but for this high-voltage,
Pakistan’s desire to make a Muslim Congress leader, communally polarising campaign led by Modi himself,
Ahmed Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat, this election in the BJP could have lost the elections in Gujarat.
that State would have been as good as lost. Let us accept Corroborating this opinion, Prithvi Singh, a politically
that. These campaign masterstrokes are what won us active farmer leader from the Kutch region of Gujarat,
these elections in Gujarat, even though by a small pointed out that this communal campaign was tried out
margin.” in bits and pieces initially, including through Chief
Minister Vijay Rupani’s allegations against Ahmed Patel
NEW CASTE ORIENTATION in the name of jehadi terrorist links. “This was done by
There were several signals that emerged during the seeking to link two alleged Islamic State operatives from
campaign in Gujarat that corroborated this point of view. Surat to the senior Congress leader since one of them was
To start with, the BJP leadership had been forced not to working with Ankleshwar’s Sardar Patel Hospital in
highlight the so-called Gujarat model of development, Bharuch, of which Ahmed Patel was a trustee once upon
since it had got exposed as a mechanism essentially a time. This did not stick as Ahmed Patel proved by
benefitting a clutch of crony capitalists, through a producing an affidavit that he had resigned his
number of reports of the Comptroller and Auditor trusteeship of the hospital way back in 2014. Patel saab
General (CAG) and through agitations by Dalits, Patels, was, incidentally, not very active in this election
farmers and fishermen. The new caste orientation that campaign, but still Modi used his name to drive a
had developed at the grass roots as a consequence of communal campaign by invoking some Pakistani who
these struggles under the leadership of young leaders had wished that Patel become the Chief Minister of
such as Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani Gujarat. Ultimately, all this worked, although not at the
had added to this, along with the socio-economic climate scale that the BJP wanted. Still, that was good enough to
created by the economic woes inflicted on the trading and get the party a majority,” Prithvi Singh told Frontline.
farming communities by the new Goods Notwithstanding the obviously
and Services Tax (GST) regime and the contentious and communally polarising
persistent ripple effects of methods employed to win the Gujarat
demonetisation. Blatant communal elections, there is a general acceptance
polarisation was the only counter within the hierarchy of the BJP leadership
visualised by the Modi-Amit Shah duo in that the victory would help Modi and Amit
this context. The BJP veteran also pointed Shah to re-assert their dominance within
out that the supplementary campaign the party. The veteran leader, who
built on some controversial statements of questioned the qualitative analysis of the
Congress leaders such as Mani Shankar verdict by Modi and Amit Shah, told
S H I V K U M A R P U S H P AK A R

Aiyar and Kapil Sibal contributed to the Frontline that if the duo had ultimately
advancement of this Hindutva plank. lost the elections in Gujarat, many leaders,
His reference, obviously, was to Aiyar’s including veterans such as former Deputy
comment on Modi being a “neech kisam ke Prime Minister L.K. Advani, would have
insaan” (a low level human being ) and made bold to raise the banner of revolt.
Sibal’s appeal in the Supreme Court “Now, the sense within the leadership
seeking postponement of the hearing of C O N GR E S S LEA D E R hierarchy as well as large sections of the
the Ayodhya Babri Masjid-Ram Ahmed Patel. rank and file is that it is Modi and his

7 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018


VIJAY SONEJI
C O N GR E S S S U P P OR T E R S celebrate the victory of their
candidate in Ahmedabad on December 18.
actively polarising campaign that has helped the BJP
retain a crucial State such as Gujarat, which the party as
well as the larger Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh [RSS]-
led Sangh Parivar has showcased as a Hindutva
laboratory.
“Clearly, there can be no questioning of his leadership
or that of his associates like Amit Shah within the party
till 2019,” said the senior BJP leader.
However, he pointed out that the Gujarat-Himachal
Pradesh results, particularly the former, has opened up
national politics as never before in the past three and a
half years. “Now, this has shown the opposition parties
that there is a window of opportunity to counter Modi
and Amit Shah provided they work consistently and hard
enough just as Congress president Rahul Gandhi did
during the Gujarat campaign.” The leader said that
Rahul Gandhi’s 17-day campaign in Gujarat traversing
the length and breadth of the State, was indeed
impressive and that its single most important deficiency
was that it was top down.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
“This top down nature thoroughly exposed the
organisational weakness of the party in Gujarat. As a
matter of fact, it is a common weakness of the Congress in
many other States, that it does not have an organisational
machinery at the ground level capable of converting
public sentiment into votes. The BJP, being a cadre party,
that is well complimented by the RSS, does not have this
deficiency. It is in this context that the gains made by the
Congress in this election have tremendous value for
Indian democracy.”
This comment is indeed significant, coming as it does
from a BJP veteran, himself a champion of many
Hindutva battles. In a sense, it points towards a kind of
churning within the BJP. Talking in a similar vein,
Subhash Deswal, political observer who was a colonel in
the Indian Army and is currently a progressive farmer in
western Uttar Pradesh, said that the ultimate lesson from
the Gujarat results was that the opposition parties could
fight the dominant BJP under Modi and seek to uphold
the real spirit of Indian democracy if they can
conscientiously build up their unity, cutting across
ideological and political differences and also avoid falling
into the trap of communally polarising discourse that the
Sangh Parivar would advance from time to time. “Indeed,
it is a trying task but one that has great merit for the
future of Indian democracy and polity,” Deswal said.
This point of view, too, has tremendous significance
since it is evident that in future electoral battles too the
principal thrust of the Sangh Parivar and the Modi-Amit
Shah-led BJP would be to take recourse to Hindutva
polarisation especially because Modi’s tenure so far has
produced no tangible socio-economic gains for the
people at large. By all indications this communal project
could well get unravelled at a perennially sensitive spot
like Ayodhya, in the form of attempts to build a Ram
mandir. Such an exercise could also lead to the clubbing
of Assembly elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,
due in the latter months of 2018, with the general
elections due in May 2019.
At another, larger level, the Gujarat verdict and the
relative gains made by the Congress also underscore the
persistence of identity-related politics as a central theme
of Indian political-sociological discourse. The Congress
and its leader, Rahul Gandhi, had sought, in this election,
to forge a social coalition of Patels, Other Backward
Classes (OBC) Kolis, Dalits and Muslims against the
pan-Hindu polarising identity perpetrated by the Sangh
Parivar. It succeeded to some extent but not to the level of
removing the BJP from power.
More importantly, there are inherent social
conflicts within the groups brought together by the
Congress in this election. Perhaps, the first real test
for the leadership of Rahul Gandhi as the newly
elevated Congress president would be in how well he
addresses issues relating to this social conflict as and
when they manifest themselves and also how well he
correlates and coordinates this with the larger
concerns of Indian democracy and its struggle
against fascist tendencies. $
8
 CO VE R ST OR Y

Distress vote
In the neck-and-neck race in Gujarat, the Congress sweeps the
Saurashtra region which is beset by widespread distress within
the farming community and discontent among the Patidars.
B Y ANUPAMA KATAKAM

S A N T OS H H I R L E K A R / P TI

C H IE F M I N I S T E R V I J A Y R U P A N I arriving at the party office, “Kamalam”, in Gandhinagar for celebrations on December

18 after the BJP's victory in the Assembly elections.

9 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

 VIJAY SONEJI
quired to form the government is all that matters, the
neck-and-neck race may slow down the BJP juggernaut
and perhaps be an indicator to the Lok Sabha elections in
2019.
For 22 years, Gujarat has been ruled by the BJP and it
was almost a given that the party would come back for a
sixth term in this State that has historically seen the two
national parties battle it out in every election. The pres-
ence of regional and other national parties is negligible.
Most poll surveys said the BJP would win between 105
and 110 seats. The drop of the final tally to 99 was least
expected. The day of the results was also different from
those of previous elections. For two decades, the clean
sweep by the party used to be clear by midday. This year,
however, until evening the numbers for the BJP kept
hovering around 100, and the final result was declared
late in the day.
CONGRESS SWEEP IN SAURASHTRA
The voting patterns classified according to region (North
Gujarat, South Gujarat, Central Gujarat and Saurashtra
and Kutch), urban-rural divide, and key communities
give a clearer picture of the results. Playing a significant
role in each election is the Saurashtra-Kutch belt. This
11
C O NG R E SS L E A D E R Rahul Gandhi in Hanjrapar village in
Saurashtra region of Gujarat on September 25 during his
two-day visit ahead of the Assembly election. Of the 56 seats
in the region, 32 went to the Congress. The Saurashtra-
Kutch region is singularly responsible for the higher
Congress tally.
time, too, the region proved it can turn the game on its
head. Of the 56 seats in the region, 32 went to the
Congress. This is a massive jump from the 15 the party
won in the 2012 elections. The Saurashtra-Kutch region
is singularly responsible for the higher Congress tally.
The BJP secured just 23 seats in the region, down 13
seats from its 2012 tally. One seat went to an independ-
ent. The region has been under BJP influence for more
than two decades, but the party was nervous this time.
Saurashtra was the hotbed of the Patidar agitation. Apart
from the BJP and the Congress, Hardik Patel’s Patidar
Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) too campaigned extens-
ively in the region, knowing full well the crucial role it had
in the elections. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
launched his campaign from Bhuj, and Congress leader
Rahul Gandhi was criticised for spending too much time
here.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 sevak Sangh (RSS) has made inroads into South Gujarat,
with large pockets of tribal communities, with its work on
Alpesh Thakor, who social and economic uplift in this area that is extremely
backward. Activists say saffronisation is almost complete
emerged as the face of in this belt; this is reflected in the election results.

Gujarat’s OBCs, won from URBAN VERSUS RURAL

When it comes to urban versus rural voters, the BJP is the
Radhanpur with a margin clear winner. Narendra Modi is a favourite among the
urban young, business and trader sections, as well as the
of over 14,000 votes. upwardly mobile Gujarati. There are 69 constituencies in
Gujarat located mostly in Central Gujarat with more
than 50 per cent urban population. Although the BJP
The Patidar agitation, in which the community de- was on a weak wicket in the rural belt, grappling with
manded that the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota issues such as agrarian distress and increasing unem-
be extended to it too, and widespread distress within the ployment, it appears that the urban voter bailed the party
farming community set off discontent in the region to an out. In Surat and Ahmedabad, the BJP registered victory
extent that had not been seen before. Farmers constitute by margins above 30,000 votes.
approximately 73 per cent of its population; their votes Interestingly, in spite of the introduction of the
apparently shifted towards the Congress. Significantly, Goods and Services Tax and demonetisation, which
55 per cent of the Patel-dominated constituencies are caused a major upheaval and disappointment in the
also in this belt. Hardik Patel’s campaign seems to have small-scale business and trading community in the
paid off. urban population, the vote went in favour of the BJP. A
In the Central Gujarat region, the BJP won 25 seats, trader from Surat said “the communal card” would have
down three seats from its 2012 tally. The Congress gained played a role here.
three more than its 2012 tally to register victory in 21
seats. North Gujarat saw a close battle, with the BJP WINNERS AND LOSERS
winning 27 seats (minus two from its 2012 tally) and the The big winners in this election are the young and dy-
Congress gaining two and winning 22 seats. South Gu- namic troika of Alpesh Thakor of the Congress, Dalit
jarat, which has been a BJP stronghold, continued that leader Jignesh Mevani, and contestants from PAAS led
trend, with the ruling party winning 22 seats. The Con- by Hardik Patel. Mevani, who contested as an independ-
gress secured just six seats here. The Rashtriya Swayam- ent candidate from Vadgam with the support of the
Congress, polled 95,497 votes in a reserved constituency.
Alpesh Thakor, who emerged as the face of Gujarat’s
OBCs who constitute about 40 per cent of the State’s
population, won from Radhanpur with a margin of over
14,000 votes over his BJP rival. The Congress campaign
received a massive shot in the arm when Alpesh Thakor
joined the party in October this year. His mobilisation of
the community was instrumental in the Congress’ gain.
Prominent contenders such as Chief Minister Vijay
Rupani and Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel were trail-
ing in the initial rounds before winning the Rajkot West
and Mehsana seats respectively. Chhotubhai Vasava, the
founder of the Bharatiya Tribal Party, won from Jhaga-
dia constituency with a margin of 48,948 votes. Vasava
represented Jhagadia in the 2012 elections on the Janata
Dal (United) ticket. He allied his party with the Congress,
helping it secure 18 of the 26 reserved seats. Three key
Congress leaders who lost are Arjun Modvadia from
Porbandar, Shankarsinh Gohil from Mandvi and Chi-
S A N T OS H H I R L E K A R / P T I

manbhai Patel from Dabhoi.

The Congress’ relentless campaign reflected in its
improved vote share. From 38.9 per cent in 2012, it
improved to around 43 per cent if the vote share of its
allies too is taken into account, according to Election
Commission data. The percentage of voting was 68.41
I M R A N K H E D A W A LA of the Congress after winning the per cent in the two-phase polls, a dip by 2.91 percentage
Jamalpur-Khadia seat, in Ahmedabad on December 18. points from 71.32 in 2012. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 12
 CO VE R ST OR Y

The caste factor

The Assembly election results have brought navsarjan (rejuvenation) to
the Congress party in Gujarat and beyond, the credit for it going mainly to
its strategy of building electoral alliances with caste groups.
B Y AKSHAY DESHMANE

AMONG THE FEW INDISPUTABLE
consequences of the just-concluded Assembly election in
Gujarat is the forceful return of a peculiar form of iden-
tity politics. While religious identity, in the form of ag-
gressive Hindutva, was the dominant tool for mobilising
voters during the past two decades, this election cam-
paign reintroduced an old form of identity politics first
pushed by the Congress during the Assembly elections in
1980. The 2017 election results, declared on December
18, show that this form of identity politics still has wide
acceptance in the State even if Hindutva continues to
dominate.
“KHAM-style politics has been revived in this elec-
tion.” This was the common refrain in a section of long-
time Gujarat-based election watchers and researchers as
they spoke to Frontline, even if they differed in detail, on
the day the results came out. The acronym KHAM de-
notes an electoral alliance of the Kshatriya, Harijan,

S A N T OS H H I R L E K A R / P TI

T H E Y O UN G P A T I D A R leader Hardik Patel at a road show in Ahmedabad on December 11.

13 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018


K A M A L S I N G H / P TI
J I G NE S H M E V A N I. The seat he won, Vadgam, was a
BJP bastion.
Adivasi and Muslim communities, first framed by the
Congress leader Madhavsinh Solanki before the 1980
Assembly election with great success. Explaining how
KHAM reflects in the 2017 Assembly election results,
Mahashweta Jani, a researcher with long experience of
working on pre- and post-election surveys for the Delhi-
based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
(CSDS), said: “The Congress has done well among Dalit,
OBC [Other Backward Classes] and tribal voters.” She
said that the increase in the Congress’ tally had come
predominantly from rural seats, especially those where
Dalits and tribal people are numerically strong. While 6.7
per cent of Gujarat’s population is identified as Dalit or
Scheduled Caste (S.C.), 14.7 per cent is identified as tribal
or Scheduled Tribe (S.T.).
Dr Bhanu Parmar, a professor based in Anand who
has been a part of the surveys conducted by the CSDS,
differed slightly. He also believed caste-based mobilisa-
tion played a critical role in the results, but he felt there
Notwithstanding its defeat,
the Congress is now being
seen as an electoral force
in Gujarat with the
potential to perform the
role of a strong opposition.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
was an alliance of different communities this time. Spe-
cifically, he had in mind the role of the Patidars who were
not a part of the KHAM and, in fact, stood in opposition
to it in the 1980s.
This time, the Congress party banked predominantly
on the mobilisation by Hardik Patel and his outfit, the
Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), for the support
of more than 12 per cent of Patel community voters who
had been voting for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) for decades but were apparently drifting away from
it. Their votes did have an impact on the results, but not
to the extent desired by the Congress. In fact, urban Patel
votes appear to have gone in favour of the BJP. In the
context of the 2017 elections, the reference to “KHAM
style” politics may, in a broader sense, be taken to include
the caste-based mobilisations led by the three young
community leaders, Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and
Jignesh Mevani. However, this identity politics has
emerged at a time when issues of rural-urban divide and
class are also potent. Hence it was raised much more
overtly during the 2017 election campaign. The con-
sequences were apparent in the results.
As Mahashweta Jani pointed out, Hardik Patel’s
campaign was especially effective in rural Gujarat, where
Patel farmers growing cotton and groundnut could not
be swayed by claims of “vikas” (development). This was
clear in the Congress’ impressive showing in the Sauras-
htra-Kutch region, where more than half of Gujarat’s
Patel community seats are located. It won 30 of the
region’s 54 seats, while the BJP won 23. The one remain-
ing seat went to an independent candidate.
In Mahashweta Jani’s reckoning, the co-existence of
issues of caste and profession affected the campaign and
the results: “If you look closely, he [Hardik Patel] cam-
paigned mostly in Saurashtra. He spoke a lot about farm-
ers, especially about them not getting supportive rates. In
Saurashtra, cotton and groundnut farmers have played a
big role [in victories for Congress]. Apart from being
Patidars, they are also farmers. But their counterparts in
cities voted BJP. Even Surat, for instance, where dia-
mond traders protested against the Goods and Services
Tax, the BJP won. So there was no en masse voting by
Patels, but a significant chunk of the community’s vote
went away from the BJP and towards the Congress.”
Curiously, though, as the CSDS’ third pre-election
report about Gujarat’s voting preferences shows, Hardik
Patel’s popularity was progressively decreasing until late
November while Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani
were improving upon their own popularity steadily.
This also fuelled the Congress party’s campaign,
which appears to have improved upon support from Dalit
voters. Data from the Election Commission about the 13
reserved S.C. constituencies in Gujarat show that this
time the BJP won seven of them, the Congress won five
and Jignesh Mevani, who contested as an independent
candidate backed by the Congress, won the Vadgam seat.
This is a significant improvement for the Congress, which
had won relatively fewer S.C. seats in the 2012 elections.
Mahashweta Jani said: “On a larger scale, Dalits have
14

A L P E S H T H A K O R with Rahul Gandhi at the rally in which he joined the Congress in October. He won from Radhanpur
against a Thakor candidate fielded by the BJP.
always been committed voters of the Congress party. It’s
not necessary that winning Dalit seats alone indicates
support from Dalit voters, as people from the Other
Backward Classes and Muslim communities also con-
tribute to votes in these [reserved] constituencies. How-
ever, Dalit community voters in general constituencies
have also voted Congress. This was evident during our
multiple surveys before the election and is now reflected
in the results, too.”
Clearly, the Congress benefited by the KHAM-like
strategy to some extent, but it could not repeat the 1980
performance. Also, the BJP conducted its own social
engineering among castes with non-Thakor OBC groups
backing the saffron party in a significant manner. For
instance, Dr Bhanu Parmar cited how North Gujarat’s
Chaudhary community vote was split between the Con-
15
PTI
gress and the BJP in the past. This time, he reckoned,
owing to the rise in the Thakor community’s support for
the Congress, the Chaudhary community shifted allegi-
ance en bloc to the BJP.
Notwithstanding its defeat, the Congress is now be-
ing seen as a serious electoral force in Gujarat with a
potential to perform the role of a strong opposition party
in the Assembly where the BJP reigned virtually unchal-
lenged in the past two decades. Parmar said: “The Con-
gress party’s slogan was about bringing navsarjan to
Gujarat, it seems it is the party’s State unit which has got
navsarjan.” A significant role in this “navsarjan” was
played by the alliance of the three new and young caste
leaders who campaigned aggressively against the ruling
party. $
With inputs from Anupama Katakam
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 CO VE R ST OR Y

Clean sweep in
Himachal Pradesh
The BJP wrests power from the Congress in a keenly
fought election marked by a few upsets. B Y T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

A K H I LE S H K U M A R

S U R E S H B H A R D W A J , the Shimla Urban BJP candidate, during a victory procession.

FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 16

 A K H I LE S H K U M A R
PREM KUMAR DHUMAL.
IN THE SINGLE-PHASE ELECTION TO THE
Himachal Pradesh Assembly on November 9, which re-
gistered the highest ever turnout (75.28 per cent) in the
history of the State, the electorate of Himachal Pradesh
voted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power. The
BJP’s return to the seat of governance in the State after a
gap of five years was not a surprise because no party has
managed to win elections successively and retain the
reins of power since 1985. Yet, the elections to the 68-
member State Assembly were keenly contested between
the incumbent Congress and the opposition BJP. While
six-time Congress Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh led his
party’s campaign, his political adversary and former
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal was the face of the
BJP.
Compared to the number of high-octane rallies in
Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed only
seven in the State, leaving most of the campaigning to
Dhumal. The high-decibel campaign in Gujarat was in
contrast to the largely subdued campaigning in Hi-
machal Pradesh.
While the BJP secured a thumping majority, its Chief
Ministerial candidate lost, as did the party’s BJP State
president, Satpal Singh Satti. Dhumal lost from Sujan-
pur by 2,933 votes. The winner, Rajinder Singh Rana of
A K H I LE S H K U M A R
PTI
V I R BH A D R A S I N G H . ANIL SHARMA.
the Congress, was once his protege. He had successfully
contested as an independent in 2012 too.
Dhumal’s relative and former Speaker Gulab Singh
Thakur also lost. The defeat of the BJP heavyweights in
the face of anti-incumbency and a decisive two-thirds
majority was inexplicable.
Factionalism in the BJP has been a feature for quite
some time. With competing interests and claims for
Chief Ministership, Dhumal’s position was always some-
what shaky in this round of election. He was not keen to
shift his constituency from Hamirpur. He was named as
the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate after a consider-
able delay. There was intense speculation early on that
J.P. Nadda, the Union Minister for Health and Family
Welfare, would be the BJP’s candidate for the top job.
Accommodating all these competing interests had be-
come a challenge for the party.
The highlight of this year’s elections was that it was a
straight contest between the two parties unlike the As-
sembly elections of 2012 which saw a formation like the
Himachal Lokhit Party (HLP) as well as many independ-
ents in the fray. The HLP, a breakaway faction of the BJP,
eroded the BJP vote base and helped the Congress win a
simple majority. In 2012, the Congress and the BJP won
36 and 26 seats, while six seats went to others, including
17 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

The BJP’s vote share rose 10
percentage points from 2012
to 48.7 per cent while the
Congress’ share remained
virtually unchanged.
independents. Prior to the 2017 Assembly elections the
HLP declared its merger with the BJP and ensured that
the anti-Congress vote did not get divided; a significant
proportion of it went to the BJP. However, the president
of the HLP, Maheshwar Singh, who contested from
Kullu, lost to the Congress candidate. The BJP’s vote
share was 48.7 per cent, a rise of 10 percentage points
from 2012 (38.47 per cent), while the Congress secured
41.8 per cent, virtually unchanged from 42.81 per cent
C P I ( M ) candidate Rakesh Singha, who won from the
Theog constituency.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
last time. Around 0.9 per cent of the electorate exercised
the NOTA (none of the above) option this time.
CPI (M)’S VICTORY
This election saw a new entrant, Rakesh Singha of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist), winning decisively
from the Theog constituency beating the BJP candidate,
pushing the Congress to the third place.
The CPI (M), which put up 13 candidates, came in
third in a number of seats. The party has been in the
forefront of taking up farmers’ issues and Singha has
established himself as a feisty trade union and farmer
leader over the years. The Congress faced bitter factional-
ism in Theog as former Himachal Pradesh Congress
Committee (HPCC) president Vidya Stokes’ nomination
papers were rejected as another candidate had already
filed his papers as the party nominee. The Assembly seat
of Shimla was retained by Suresh Bhardwaj of the BJP,
where the runner-up was an independent, followed by
Sanjay Chauhan of the CPI(M). The Congress was
pushed to the fourth place.
In 2012, independents and others secured 18.72 per
cent of the vote; in 2017, the share of parties other than
the BJP and the Congress was less than 10 per cent. The
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which fielded candidates in
42 seats, 26 less than last time, drew a blank and secured
less than one per cent of the vote. Dalits constitute nearly
25 per cent of the population in the State, which, as a
proportion of the population, is the highest in the country
after Punjab. The BJP retained nearly 20 seats and wres-
ted the rest from the Congress. It lost four seats.
The main election issues that the BJP focussed on
were corruption, governance and law and order. The
recent rape and murder of a schoolgirl in Jubbal-Kotkhai
became election fodder in the constituency, where Nar-
endra Bragta of the BJP won, defeating Rohit Thakur of
the Congress.
The BJP started its campaign early on. It launched a
Parivartan Rath Yatra promoting the idea of “double
engine growth”, indicating that having a friendly govern-
ment at the Centre would help the State in many ways.
The BJP also claimed it would win more than 40 seats.
The Congress, on the other hand, focussed on the
“adverse impact” of the Goods and Services Tax and
demonetisation.
Congress heavyweights Virbhadra Singh, Dhani Ram
Shandil, Asha Kumari and Mukesh Agnihotri won com-
fortably while Vikramaditya Singh, Virbhadra Singh’s
son, made his debut in electoral politics by winning the
Shimla (Rural) seat, which his father vacated. However,
State Transport Minister G.S. Bali lost to Arun Kumar of
the BJP. In Mandi, Anil Sharma, son of former Union
Minister Sukh Ram, won on the BJP ticket. The Dehra
seat was won by Hoshyar Singh, an independent, while
Ravinder Singh Ravi of the BJP was the runner-up;
senior Congress leader Viplove Thakur was relegated to
third position. Gulab Singh Thakur was also defeated by
an independent in Joginder Nagar, where the Congress
came third. $
18

Long road ahead
With his formal elevation as Congress president, Rahul Gandhi now faces
several challenges to lift his party from the doldrums. BY P U R N I M A S . T R I P A T H I
FROM a bespectacled teenager
who hugged his father and sobbed
when his grandmother’s (Indira
Gandhi) pyre was lit, to the shy
young man who stood hesitantly in a
line of Congress M.P.s in the Central
Hall of Parliament in order to greet
his mother Sonia Gandhi after she
was elected leader of the Congress
Parliamentary Party in 2004, clutch-
ing a single rose behind his back,
Rahul Gandhi has traversed a long
road but still remains an enigma.
And this is what makes his elevation
as Congress president interesting,
notwithstanding the fact that his
lacklustre leadership and failure to
POLI TIC S
R A H U L G A N D HI being greeted by supporters after taking charge as Congress
president in New Delhi on December 16.
win any major election since he as-
sumed an active role in the party
have been dissected threadbare by
his political opponents.
Rahul Gandhi took over as Con-
gress president at the party
headquarters in New Delhi on
December 16 amid fanfare and cel-
ebrations by Congress workers, after
Mullappally Ramachandran, presid-
ent of the party’s central election au-
thority, completed the formality of
handing over the election certificate
to him.
19
PTI
In speeches filled with nostalgia
and emotion, Rahul Gandhi and So-
nia Gandhi spoke on how they had
faced the “politics of hate” without
getting bogged down by it and prom-
ised to continue to fight for the “secu-
lar and democratic fabric of India”.
“The Congress will defend the
voice of every single Indian and fight
politics that crushes people,” Rahul
Gandhi said, and accused Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “set-
ting the nation on fire”.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 “The Congress took India to the
21st century, but the PM today is
taking us back to the medieval times.
We are now being compelled to ima-
gine that businesses can be built
without harmony; that only one man
himself is the voice of reason; and
that expertise, experience and know-
ledge can be cast aside for personal
glory,” he said.
Cautioning the BJP against pur-
suing the politics of hatred, he said:
“Once fire breaks out it is difficult to
douse it. That is what we are telling
the people of BJP, that if you set the
nation on fire it will be difficult to
control. Today, the BJP has spread
the fire of violence across the coun-
try,” he said.
Promising to make the Congress
a “grand old young party”, he said
that the party had always believed in
the policy of inclusion.
Sonia Gandhi, who has been the
longest serving Congress president
(19 years), recalled how she had
taken over the party’s reins nervously
at a time when the party was weaken-
ing. Referring to the BJP’s continued
attacks on Rahul Gandhi, she said
they had made him stronger. “Rahul
is my son. So I do not think to praise
him is appropriate for me. But I
would say that since childhood he
had to bear the brunt of violence.
After joining politics he had to face
blatant personal attacks that have
made him a stronger person,” she
said.
Having worked in the shadow of
Sonia Gandhi since his entry into
public life in 2004, Rahul Gandhi
has so far given the impression of
being an accidental politician, a re-
luctant one who sporadically bursts
into activity, only to withdraw com-
pletely. One witnessed him energet-
ically hoodwinking the Uttar
Pradesh government in May 2011 at
Bhatta Parsaul village as he visited
agitating farmers who were demand-
ing better compensation for their
land, riding pillion on a motorcycle
despite ban orders, but was nowhere
to be seen in the Lok Sabha when the
debate on the land Bill was held
shortly afterwards. He would disap-
pear from Parliament for weeks,
without any explanation. He would
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
suddenly burst into a press confer-
ence and blast his own government
on a proposed ordinance intended to
overrule a Supreme Court order on
banning convicted individuals from
contesting elections, tearing a copy
of the ordinance to bits. He would
suddenly land in the midst of Niyam-
giri’s tribal people, promising them
his support in the fight for their hills,
only to remain completely silent on
the matter afterwards.
His actions and reactions would
often be jerky. He tried overhauling
the Youth Congress and the National
Students’ Union of India (NSUI),
only to halt the exercise midway. He
tried to create a think tank of young
Congress members, only to lose in-
terest in it later. Although he was
appointed party general secretary in
2007 and vice president in 2013,
nobody knows what his views on cru-
cial issues like Ayodhya are or what
his vision for India is. Nobody has an
idea what he thinks of the country’s
economy or how he plans to solve the
problems facing farmers or the
youth, or how he plans to tackle un-
employment or corruption or even
Delhi’s pollution problem, for that
matter.
TRACK RECORD
While he has campaigned extens-
ively since 2007, his campaigns have
mostly been road shows where he
would only be required to smile and
wave to people. Significantly, the
party has lost elections in crucial
States such as Madhya Pradesh, Ut-
tar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Ut-
tarakhand, Maharashtra and Assam,
since he started campaigning. The
2014 Lok Sabha election, where he
was the campaign in-charge, proved
disastrous for the Congress as its
tally dipped to 44, its lowest ever in
history. Barring the victories in
Karnataka and Punjab, the Congress
finds itself at sea in most of India.
But despite all these setbacks and
debacles, Congress members are un-
animous in admitting that they have
no other option. “Tell me, who could
have taken over the leadership after
Sonia Gandhi? The Gandhis are the
glue that holds the party together,”
said Mohan Prakash, senior Con-
20
gress leader in charge of Maha-
rashtra. Several others who did not
want to be named said that while it
was true there was discontent, the
bigger truth was that “there is no
other option”.
“Sonia Gandhi’s health is deteri-
orating and a decision had to be
taken. Rahul Gandhi’s election was a
foregone conclusion. Why make an
issue of whether it is good or bad for
the party? It cannot get any worse
than it already is at the moment any
way. Maybe it will just be good for us
because a change of leadership may
infuse a certain amount of optimism
in the cadre,” a senior leader said.
According to political observers,
the fact that not much is known
about the politics of Rahul Gandhi
could actually go in his favour.
“People are getting put off by the
unfulfilled promises of Narendra
Modi,” an analyst said. “High prices
of essential commodities, lack of job
opportunities and loss of employ-
ment continue to be major problems.
Added to this was the jolt from de-
monetisation and GST. There is dis-
content everywhere. How much that
will translate into goodwill for the
Congress is still not clear, but the
mood in the country today is veering
away from the BJP and this could
work for the Congress now.”
Political observers said the BJP’s
vilification of Rahul Gandhi, making
him the butt of jokes on social media
and calling him names like “Pappu”,
has actually helped him garner sym-
pathy from a certain section of soci-
ety that has started looking at him
with a new understanding.
Senior Congress leader Rajiv
Tyagi said, “Most of the slogans used
by the Prime Minister during cam-
paigning before 2014 election have
remained just slogans. Their [BJP
leaders’] barbs on Sonia Gandhi and
Rahul Gandhi sound hollow now.
People have now started paying at-
tention to what they are saying. The
vitiated communal atmosphere in
the country is making people look up
to the Congress party with a better
understanding. This is just the right
time for Rahul Gandhi to assume
charge. He will give the party a new
direction as the youth, disenchanted
with the BJP, have started paying
attention to what he is saying”.
But despite the optimism in Con-
gress circles, Rahul Gandhi has a
tough job ahead. His first challenge
is to steer the party through many
approaching Assembly elections and
then lead it to victory in 2019. As
things stand today, the party is not
very optimistic about the outcome in
Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. An
adverse verdict in these two States
immediately after he takes over will
only put a question mark on his lead-
ership. Holding on to Karnataka,
which is next in line, is another chal-
lenge and dethroning the BJP in
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and
Rajasthan, where elections are
scheduled for next year, will again
require a lot of hard work and out-of-
the-box thinking. It remains to be
seen if he has the required acumen to
steer his party to victory.
Another challenge he faces is
maintaining a balance between the
young and the old guard. A genera-
tional shift is imperative in the party
but whether the veterans will make
way smoothly is a question mark. It is
assumed that young leaders such as
Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora
and Sachin Pilot will be given new
responsibilities and this could irk
senior leaders such as Digvijaya
Singh, Ahmed Patel, P. Chidam-
baram, Motilal Vora, and Janardan
Dwivedi.
“The senior leaders, whose hege-
mony is about to end, will definitely
feel restless. The outburst by
Shehzad Poonawalla is a sign that
some resentment is brewing within
the party and this resentment is be-
ing stoked by some disgruntled ele-
ments,” said a senior Congress
functionary, referring to the recent
media outburst by Poonawalla in
which he alleged that the entire elec-
tion process for the post of president
was rigged.
“This is not a free and fair elec-
tion. This is a selection, a fixed elec-
tion where the process has been
rigged. Rahul Gandhi should have
resigned from the post of vice presid-
ent and then contested as a common
member of the party,” Poonawalla,
who, until recently, was a party sec-
OINAM ANAND/AP
R A HU L G A N D H I with his mother
and former party president Sonia
Gandhi on December 16.
retary in Maharashtra, told Front-
line.
Poonawalla justified his revolt
saying that the Congress could only
be revived if dynasty was brought to
an end and positions were filled ac-
cording to merit. “Rahul Gandhi has
lost every election that he cam-
paigned for. Is this why he is being
promoted to the post of party presid-
ent?” he asked.
Poonawalla could prove to be a
pain in the neck for Rahul Gandhi
because he is related to Priyanka
Gandhi’s husband, Robert Vadra.
Vadra’s sister is married to his
brother Tehseen Poonawalla and his
outburst could prove to be an embar-
rassment for the family.
But senior Congress leaders were
dismissive. “He is not even an ordin-
ary member of the party. He is
nobody. We don’t even want to com-
ment on what he is saying,” said Mo-
han Prakash, dismissing any
suggestion that Poonawalla could do
some harm to the party.
But the fact that Narendra Modi
referred to Poonawalla’s outburst in
his election speeches in Gujarat is
proof that there is a certain degree of
nervousness in BJP circles. This
nervousness also arises from the
realisation that Rahul Gandhi seems
to have matured lately and this has
been reflecting in his election
speeches and tweets. He has never
stooped to using abusive language
21
against BJP leaders, even though
they leave no chance to lampoon
him. However, he has not shied away
from asking the Prime Minister
pointed questions about the state of
affairs in Gujarat.
If history is any indication, then
the BJP has reasons to be worried.
Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira
Gandhi, was called a goongi gudiya
(dumb doll) when she became a Min-
ister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet,
but she evolved to become a tough
Prime Minister, so tough that she
was referred to as the “only man” in
her Cabinet. Her iron-fisted hand-
ling of the Bangladesh situation even
forced the Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh (RSS) to praise her. Former
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
once referred to her as Goddess
Durga, after the 1971 war.
Rajiv Gandhi, who too had
stumbled into Prime Ministership
after the assassination of Indira
Gandhi, endeared himself to the
masses with his innocent bumbling
ways. One of his Independence Day
speeches, in which he kept referring
to it as gantantra diwas (Republic
Day), evoked great benign amuse-
ment. On another occasion, while
giving an election speech, he re-
peatedly kept saying “hum jeetenge
ya loosenge” (whether we win or
lose), and the people simply loved it.
Despite his innocent follies, he
ushered in the telecom revolution in
the country, introduced computers
in India and brought about funda-
mental changes by bringing in the
Panchayati Raj Act, a truly em-
powering piece of legislation. Be-
sides, he altered the electorate’s
profile forever by lowering the voting
age to 18.
Being seen as “naive” and “being
ignorant” is no disqualification in
this country, provided the people
realise that the intentions are good.
If Rahul Gandhi can convince the
people of India that his intentions
are good, then his ignorance or naiv-
ety will be forgiven. It remains to be
seen if India will have yet another
Gandhi ruling over the hearts and
minds of people or whether Naren-
dra Modi’s call for a Congress-mukt
Bharat will come true. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 DI SAS T E R
Waves of
grief and
anger
Cyclone Ockhi devastates the coast of south
India and lays bare the administration’s
indifference to the plight of fishing
communities. B Y R . K . R A D H A K R I S H N A N I N K A N Y A KU M A R I
THE only sounds that originate
these days from homes in the richest
fishing villages in India, in the
Thoothoor belt of Kanyakumari dis-
trict on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala bor-
der, are the wails of women and
children. Thoothoor—known to the
rest of India for the footballers it has
produced and for its residents’ pen-
chant for hunting a particular variety
of sharks—is still waiting for hun-
F I S H E R WO M E N O F N E ER O D Y in Kanyakumari district wailing over their
dear ones who have gone missing following Cyclone Ockhi, on December 5.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
dreds of fishermen who went to sea
much before Cyclone Ockhi struck
the southern-most tip of mainland
India on November 29. Even three
weeks after the disaster, the chances
of retrieving them dead or alive ap-
pear remote.
According to data put out on
December 13 by parish priests of the
eight villages in the Thoothoor belt—
Neerody, Marthanthura, Vallavila,
EP Thura, Chinnathura, Thoothoor,
Poothura, Eraimanthura—376 per-
sons were missing and 104 were con-
firmed dead. As many as 17 boats had
sunk and 28 were missing. Of the
smaller boats, 29 had sunk and three
were missing. Also missing were four
kattumarams and about 60 plywood
vallams. A Union Home Ministry
statistic, put out on December 14,
said that in all, 619 fishermen were
missing. Of them, 433 were from
Tamil Nadu.
A . S H A I K M O H I DE E N
“I have four girls,” said a woman
in Thoothoor even as she fought hard
to control her sobs. “I have only chet-
tan [literally, brother, but the word
is a colloquial Malayalam usage to
refer to husband]. I have not heard
from him,” she added. The eldest of
22

M E M B E R S O F T H E F I S H IN G C O M M U N I T Y staging a protest in Kanyakumari on December 8 alleging that the
Tamil Nadu government was doing little to trace the fishermen who went missing.
her children, nearly 10, understands
the implications of the words
uttered, and joins the mother, crying.
The youngest is distracted by the at-
tention that many outsiders, officials
and the media, are showering on her.
Some distance away, 16 families
have lost at least one breadwinner. In
some of these homes, the fishermen
who went out to sea were the sole
earning members. Village after vil-
lage has the same story to narrate. By
the time the media reached the vil-
lage and officials began making
rounds, rage and anger replaced grief
and gloom in the bilingual fishermen
community—the most neglected of
communities in Tamil Nadu because
they do not form a sizeable vote bank
in any constituency.
ENORMITY OF THE TRAGEDY
In most of these villages there is not a
single family that is unaffected by the
tragedy. In one case, a BTech gradu-
ate, who studied in an engineering
college in Coimbatore and had just
completed his course, decided to
head out to sea because he was not
doing much at home.
Fishermen in the Thoothoor belt,
comprising eight almost fully-Chris-
tian villages, have a hundred such
stories to tell: of a father and son who
23
PTI
went out because there was a short-
age of crew and never came back, of
four members of a family who went
on the same boat and were yet to
return, of a survivor still crying be-
cause he cut loose a colleague’s dead
body tied to him with a rope because
he could not pull it any longer, of a
boat crew unable to decide whom to
help after two of its members were
washed overboard, of passing ships
refusing to help them even though
they were holding on to capsized
boats because the Indian Coast
Guard—ironically the search and
rescue coordinators for the Indian
Ocean Region—did not put out an
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
alert asking commercial liners to
help, and of picking up bodies that
had begun to decompose and were
coming apart after floating for days
at sea.
“One body with a life jacket on it
was floating near Thengapattinam
[harbour],” recounted a fisherman.
“I grabbed the hand and tried to pull
up the body. The hand came apart,”
he said. It was the body of a local
youth, a BTech graduate, who had
taken to fishing. The team that went
out in search of survivors knew the
youngster. Speaking in a matter-of-
fact manner, with no change in his
tone, the fisherman continued: “He
had six identity cards and mobile
phones on a backpack he was carry-
ing. We have handed it over to the
District Collector’s office.”
In Neerody, the last village, one
fisherman asked this correspondent
if I had been out on a very windy and
rainy day without an umbrella. I said
I had. His response: “Imagine, for
miles there are no trees or any
obstacle. You are on a boat and the
wind is bearing you down, the water
R I G H T O P P O S IT E S T . N I C HO L A S C H U R C H in Neerody village, fishermen have erected a hoarding with photographs
of 36 men, aged between 16 and 58, with a caption that reads: “Neerody people who died of Ockhi Cyclone.”
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
is swirling around you and the rain is
hitting you right in the face. Can
you?” After a brief pause, so that this
image sank into my head, he contin-
ued: “The rain drops are like needles.
They poke your face. Your skin
comes loose. When the wind is too
heavy, we bleed from our face even as
we try to keep the boat afloat. Be-
cause of the swirls, we cannot control
the boat too,” he added.
NO PROPER WARNING
In village after village, the fishermen
had one complaint: They were not
aware of the approaching cyclone. “I
left with a group in Kochi [in Kerala]
on November 6,” said a fishermen in
Thoothoor. “Just as we were return-
ing, heavy winds hit us. We didn’t
know it was a cyclone. The winds
took us within a few kilometres off
Goa. We tried to reach out to the
Navy and Coast Guard on our wire-
less [VHF set]. No help came,” he
added. He said that never in his
working life of three decades had he
seen a cyclone of this intensity.
There are three kinds of fisher-
24
men in these villages: one, those who
go out in country boats for a few
nautical miles into the sea; two,
those who go in mechanised fibre
boats, which go up to 50-60 nautical
miles into the sea; and three, those
who go out in large boats, which go
even 1,000 nautical miles and bey-
ond. While the country boats return
the same day or stay out for a couple
of days, the large boats have
routinely fished close to Diego Gar-
cia, the Horn of Africa, and West
Asian countries. The large boats stay
out for as long as 40 to 50 days and
carry up to 25,000 litres of diesel.
The operation of larger boats in-
creases input costs by a huge factor,
but fishermen say that it is worth the
effort. The catch is proportionately
large, and most of the areas that Kan-
yakumari fishermen frequent are
rich in fish resources, they claim.
Because of the lack of informa-
tion, most fishermen were returning
when they were caught in the storm.
A few fishermen, who had gone out
in smaller boats from Neerody, said
they had sensed the changing
A . S H A I K M O H I DE E N
weather and decided to make a dash
for the shore. Many were caught well
short of the shore.
The India Meteorological De-
partment clarified that the organisa-
tion had issued a cyclone warning at
11:30 a.m. on November 29. Most of
Kanyakumari’s multi-day fishing ex-
peditions had begun much before the
warning was issued. Parish priests in
all the villages said that a huge num-
ber of fishermen were possibly
caught in the storm as they were re-
turning with their catch.
Right opposite St. Nicholas
Church in Neerody village, fisher-
men have erected a hoarding with
photos of 36 men, aged between 16
and 58, with a caption that reads:
“Neerody people who died of Ockhi
Cyclone.” The church’s parish assist-
ant, Rajesh, agrees with the fisher-
men that these 36 will not return.
The District Collector visited the
church after the tragedy, and the St.
Nicholas Church has given on its let-
terhead the names and details of the
36 fishermen.
But government regulations in-
sist that if a body is not found, then
compensation can only be given
seven years later. In this case, the
district administration has “prom-
ised steps”, the fishermen say, but
they are not confident whether this
will translate into any concrete
action.
The reason for their lack of con-
fidence is not far to seek. Neither
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edap-
padi K. Palaniswami nor the local
Member of Parliament, Pon
Radhakrishnan, visited any of the af-
fected villages for over 10 days after
the tragedy. “The MP was inaugurat-
ing some textile showroom in Nager-
coil. Why can’t he come here?” asked
a fisherman.
Following incessant pressure on
the Tamil Nadu government, the
Chief Minister finally visited the dis-
trict on December 12. “As a result of
the energetic ongoing protests in all
coastal places in our region since the
Kuzhithurai railway station protest,
Tamilnadu Chief Minister Edappadi
K Palanisamy visited the represent-
atives of all 8 villages in Thoothoor
region in a meeting organised at St
Jude’s College Thoothoor on 12th next of kin, and a doubling of liveli-
Dec 2017 evening,” said a well-up- hood compensation to Rs.5,000 for
dated website of the fishermen, 31,000 fishermen. Soon after he
thoothoor.com. “For this, 20 repres- came to Chennai, the Chief Minister
entatives covering the survivors, rel- ordered payment of compensation of
atives of the victims, committee Rs.1 crore to the next of kin of a Tamil
members, and activists were identi- Nadu police inspector who was shot
fied by each villages…. On the dead in mysterious circumstances in
ground, people’s current focus and Rajasthan.
urge is the search operation though it Soon after the cyclone struck the
is already very late and let the gov- coast, Defence Minister Nirmala
ernment first put all its effort ag- Sitharaman and Deputy Chief Min-
gressively in that. There were also ister O. Panneerselvam visited the
concerns raised by people that all affected areas. On December 3, the
people were not given opportunity to Defence Minister claimed that 357
raise their concerns directly to the fishermen, including 71 from Tamil
chief minister. It is time for us to Nadu, had been rescued. The parish
unite, focus, work with forces, and priests of the eight villages handed
attain good result. We can hear over to the Minister a memorandum
everywhere from emotional people which listed as missing 234 boats
that if there is any hope still left, with about 2,000 fishermen.
every minute is crucial in the search Nirmala Sitharaman addressed
operation,” it added. Any details on the distraught fishermen, but was
survivors and other details are im- constantly interrupted by loud
mediately uploaded on the site. protests from the fishermen about
The Chief Minister promised to the Coast Guard and Navy not doing
double the compensation for those enough. “I have come to save your
dead, a job for those who had lost a life. Don’t misunderstand,” she said
over a loudspeaker, even as a dis-
tressed fisherman was shouting
questions at her. She asked him to
keep quiet.
CLUELESS GOVERNMENTS
The anxiety of the fishermen, which
both the Central and State govern-
ments refused even to attempt to
A . S H A I K M O H I DE E N
comprehend, was about the direc-
tion of the rescue efforts. “Put us out
on a boat. With the [ocean] currents,
we can tell you where our people will
A . H E L E N M A R Y , who lost her be,” said a fisherman.
husband S. Antoniar Pichchai. “Neither the Coast Guard nor the
government was willing to listen to
us. We could have saved many more
lives if they had listened to us,” said
According to Jose Bilbin, president of the Thoot-
hoor fishermen’s cooperative society.
government The fishermen are angry in all the
eight coastal villages and have not
regulations, if a made their displeasure a secret.
The Coast Guard dutifully puts
body is not found, out releases each day on what it has
done. For example, on December 14,
compensation a release said: “Indian Coast Guard
continued its Search and rescue ef-
can only be given forts off Tamil Nadu/ Kerala/
Karnataka/ Lakshadweep/ Minicoy
after seven years. coast upto 625 kms off coast by de-
25 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
ploying 26 surface assets, 02 aircraft,
02 Helicopter for search of missing
fishermen along West Coast of India
including L & M [Lakshadweep and
Minicoy] Islands & Kanyakumari
coast. Extensive sea air coordinated
search carried out by Coast Guard
aircraft along with ICGS Samar and
When someone goes missing
It is a punishment to the family
that is left ashore when someone
goes missing at sea: life remains
in limbo until his dead body is
retrieved or seven years, the gov-
ernment-mandated time for a
missing person to be declared
dead, pass. There is a sliver of
hope when the name is not
moved into the “dead” column in
a government statistic, but there
is extreme pain, anxiety and suf-
fering as each day passes without
any news of the person.
“There are no words to de-
scribe this,” said Baby John,
whose brother went missing in
2009. “The worst part is that no
one in the government is willing
to help us when we approach
them for compensation.”
His brother, John Cletus, was
among those who were reported
missing after a cyclone. Accord-
ing to the first information report
(No.900, dated November 17,
2009) filed at the Balipattam po-
lice station in Kannur, Kerala,
from where John and the others
had left, “on November 2, 2009,
at about noon 10 fishermen went
for fishing from Azheekal, Kan-
nur, Kerala, in a boat named
Theertham bearing registration
number TN 15 MFB 471, and at
about 40 nautical miles from
Malipetti shore, Goa, the boat
collapsed and sank on November
11 at 3 p.m. on account of cyclone
and seven fishermen were miss-
ing. Three men survived suffer-
ing injuries and lost property
worth Rs.46 lakh, etc.”
Cletus’ mother, Kurusumary,
his three sisters, Sony, Pretta and
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
ICGS Sankalp.” It also gave a de-
tailed account of its operations and
how many fishermen the organisa-
tion had saved.
But the fact remains that both
the Central and State governments
had no clue as to the number of fish-
ermen who were missing at sea: they
Selvarani, and two brothers,
Paniadimai and Baby John,
waited. Seven years after he went
missing, the family began the ex-
cruciatingly painful process of
seeking compensation. For this,
the FIR in Kannur had to be ac-
cessed, it had to be translated
(since the original was in Malay-
alam), and certified in Kerala by
a magistrate. A big bureaucratic
process awaited them in Kanyak-
umari too.
“The whole process itself cost
me about Rs.50,000, right from
the cost of going to Kannur,” said
Baby John. “We have given all the
original documents to the Nager-
coil fisheries office. The officer
there wanted us to meet the teh-
sildar. The tehsildar told us that
he had nothing to do with this,
and that we had to directly talk to
the Fisheries Department. Then
we were asked to get the death
certificate. I went there three
times. Nothing happened,” he
said.
The local MLA, S. Rajesh Ku-
mar, promised help and took
them to the fisheries office. “They
told him that only after the death
certificate is received could he
apply for compensation. When
[Tamil Nadu Fisheries] Minister
D. Jayakumar had come here the
other day, we approached him.
He directed officials to handle
the case in a week. Nothing
happened. One copy was given to
the Fisheries Secretary, too, more
than a week and a half ago. We
have received no news yet,” he
said.
R.K. Radhakrishnan
26
gave astonishingly low numbers of
those who were out at sea and those
who were missing. The Times of In-
dia reported on November 30 that
more than 1,500 Kanyakumari fish-
ermen were still stranded at sea or
missing. When this correspondent
cross-checked the number with State
government officials, they claimed
that this number was a vast
exaggeration.
A government press release is-
sued on that day claimed that 18 fish-
ermen were missing and five of them
were rescued. The next day there was
a dramatic rise in the number of fish-
ermen missing in the government
press release: it jumped to 106 miss-
ing and 76 rescued. Over the next few
days, these numbers steadily rose in
press releases.
Inquiries at all levels of the ad-
ministration in Kanyakumari clearly
pointed to the fact that the State gov-
ernment was clueless on the number
of fishermen out at sea. This is des-
pite the fact that fishermen have to
register before they go out to sea. To
make matters worse, the govern-
ment refused to accept the version of
the fishermen that over 2,000 of
them were missing for nearly a week
after the disaster.
Finally, it was a week later that
the government accepted in a rather
circuitous way that over 2,000
people were missing. A release
claimed that more than 2,000 miss-
ing fishermen are now safe. On
December 11, the government accep-
ted that 433 fishermen were missing.
Fishermen in Neerody village said
that they had 661 names of missing
fishermen.
DEAD, BUT NO NUMBERS
While one set of officials who landed
from Chennai are clear that the num-
bers of the dead should be collated
and declared early, there seems to be
no action on the ground. Since there
is no clarity on the numbers of the
dead, the quantum of compensation
that each of the families has to be
given is also stuck in limbo. Confu-
sion prevails at all levels of the ad-
ministration in the district. This is
despite the fact that a young Indian
Administrative Service officer, G.S.
Sameeran, Additional Director,
Fisheries, Ramanathapuram, has
come in for praise from all quarters
for his work among fishermen in the
aftermath of the cyclone.
It is under these circumstances of
mindless bungling and rank insens-
itivity on the part of the State govern-
ment that the fishermen are
articulating an old demand: allow us
to be part of Kerala. Most of the fish-
ermen in these eight villages speak a
mixture of Malayalam and Tamil.
Apart from the incompetence of the
State administration, the villagers
point to two reasons why they want
to be part of Kerala: The almost all-
Catholic villages are served by the
Thiruvananthapuram diocese, and
the Kerala capital is only an hour or
so away from the farthest point of
Kanyakumari. The diocese, too, has
some influence over the government.
Moreover, fishermen claim that Ker-
ala treats its fishermen with respect
O N D E C EM B E R 1 0 , days after the cyclone hit, family members of fishermen staging a demonstration in Kanyakumari
seeking the help of Central and State government agencies to intensify the search for the missing fishermen.
and dignity, which, they say, is lack-
ing in Tamil Nadu.
The State border is about a kilo-
metre away from Neerody. While the
handling of the crisis in Kerala came
for adverse criticism from the media
and opposition parties in the State,
the fact is that its Chief Minister,
Pinarayi Vijayan, and other Minis-
ters acted with a sense of urgency. In
contrast, the Tamil Nadu Chief Min-
ister was seen campaigning in the
R.K. Nagar constituency where an
Assembly byelection was to be held
on December 21.
FISHERMEN’S PROTEST
The fishermen organised a series of
protests each day to attract the atten-
tion of the media and the govern-
ment to their plight. Peace rallies and
fasts, human chains and rail rokos
were all part of their efforts to focus
the attention of an apathetic govern-
ment. None of these worked in the
27
first week. Fishermen from across
Tamil Nadu and opposition parties
took up their cause and this finally
led to some “action”. The police filed
criminal complaints against over
10,000 persons who blocked trains
at Kuzhithurai railway station for
over 10 hours (getting on to the rail-
way track without permission is a
criminal offence). They shut off the
Marina beach on December 8, fear-
ing a gathering of fishermen on the
famed jallikattu site.
Meanwhile, there has been a con-
certed effort to colour the agitation
as one driven by the church. In all the
conversations this correspondent
had with parish priests in the vil-
lages, they were very clear on what
they were doing: We are part of this
community. If anything bad happens
in the community, we have to be with
the community. “It is ridiculous to
say that we are instigating anything.
See the number of fishermen who
PTI
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

I N K O C H I on December 3, Tamil Nadu fishermen, who were stranded at sea
following the cyclone, being brought to the Chellanam harbour with the help of
local fishermen after they were rescued by the Coast Guard.
have died. Can any community keep
its peace during extraordinary situ-
ations like this?” asked a priest.
The seething anger and the total
incompetence of the State ma-
chinery finally dawned on the gov-
ernment and it deputed a senior
Secretary-level officer, Gagandeep
Singh Bedi, who is also a former Col-
lector of Kanyakumari district, to
handle the situation. Bedi, currently
Agriculture Secretary, was open to
suggestions that the death toll could
be higher than the figures men-
tioned. But all these measures were
too little, too late.
This high-powered government
team came in considerable style—
just as all government delegations
arrive. A convoy of 17 vehicles
reached Thoothoor just past 3 p.m.
on December 10 and parked right in
the middle of the road, which had
barely enough width for two vehicles
to pass each other. The government
vehicles remained right in the
middle of the road until the delega-
tion left the village more than an
hour later. A large posse of police
personnel jumped from their mini
buses and formed a protective cor-
don around the officials. A little dis-
tance away, in a makeshift shamiana,
fishermen kept raising slogans de-
manding quick action and relief.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
PTI
Seeing the police personnel, Bedi
directed the local officials to keep
them away. “I am here to talk to the
people. I do not need police protec-
tion,” he said, and asked for direc-
tions to the parish priest’s house. On
the day that Bedi landed in Kanyaku-
mari, he was gheraoed. “After that I
went to Chinnathurai, from home to
home. The fishermen are upset,” he
said, when asked about the gherao.
The anxiety of the State govern-
ment is a bit difficult to comprehend.
“This is plain stupidity,” said an offi-
cial who was made aware of the situ-
ation. “Obviously the government
cannot be held responsible for those
who died at sea because of the cyc-
lone. So why is the government not
putting out the correct numbers as
and when it gets updated?” he asked.
All that was required was to acknow-
ledge the numbers, pacify the people
with updates on the efforts being
taken, and speed up the compensa-
tion mechanism, he added. Needless
secrecy has been the hallmark of the
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam government from Jayala-
lithaa’s time and it continues to this
day.
ADMINISTRATIVE INACTION
It was not just the government that
was absent from the scene. While
28
two MLAs were working seriously on
the field, there was no trace of the
local MP, who is a Central Minister.
Fishermen representatives this cor-
respondent spoke to brought up this
fact repeatedly.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
MLA and local district secretary
Mano Thangaraj said that people
had some expectations of their rep-
resentatives and when these were
not met, they got agitated. “I have not
seen many VAOs [village adminis-
trative officers] or electricity board
staff around. There is so much work,
and the people are demanding quick
action. For action to be taken, you
need to first know what the extent of
the damage is. Even that has not
been done properly,” he said.
Initially, the district administra-
tion claimed that only a few hundred
electric poles had been damaged.
This was later revised to 13,439. Of
this, the government claimed that
13,264 had been replaced. Mano
Thangaraj and representatives of
fishermen from across the State say
that the actual damage is much
higher.
There are a few related issues
that get little attention. One is that of
fishermen from a village travelling
distances to be part of a crew in an-
other part of the country. For in-
stance, three fishermen from
Nadukuppam, near Puducherry,
came to work for a boat owner,
Wilson, in Kanyakumari about two
months ago.
“They get paid better in Kanyak-
umari,” said Viduthalai Chiruthaigal
Katchi general secretary D. Raviku-
mar. “The three fishermen left home
on November 8 and are yet to return.
I am told that their boat didn’t re-
turn. I have no clue where to search
for them,” he said.
Instances of fishermen travelling
from Kanyakumari to Kerala,
Karnataka and beyond for work are
not rare. However far they travel for
work, the fishermen, mostly Christi-
ans, almost always come back home
for Christmas. Families ashore are
waiting with bated breath for Christ-
mas.
They hope that by then their near
and dear would return home. $
 ESSAY

SUPREME COURT
ON TRIAL
The Supreme Court should
consider seriously whether it
should proceed with the appeals
on the Ayodhya case at all after
quashing the partitioning
judgment of the Allahabad High
Court, rejecting decisively its
view that faith prevails over the
law and that any object
worshipped becomes an object of
legal protection. B Y A . G . N O O R A N I

“But this much I think I do know that a society so

riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court
can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes,
no court need save; that in a society which evades its
responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the
nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will
perish.”
−Learned Hand in a lecture at Boston
on the “Contribution of an Independent Judiciary
to Civilisation” on November 21, 1942
(emphasis here as in the original).

T HIS is a perfectly accurate description of the state of

Indian society in the last 30 years since the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) began demanding construction of a
Ram temple at Ayodhya even though the Babri Masjid
had stood there since 1528. It was demolished by the
THE HINDU ARCHIVES

activists of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak

Sangh (RSS) and allies like the Shiv Sena on December 6,
1992.
The Supreme Court of India is the country’s last
resort for seekers of justice. The chequered course of
justice has made it the court of the very last resort. On A Y O D HY A , D E C E M B ER 9 , 1 9 9 2 : The makeshift
December 5, 2017, before a Bench comprising Chief temple where the Babri Masjid once stood.

29 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S. T H E B A B R I M AS J I D ,
Abdul Nazeer, counsel for the appellants, the Muslim hours before its
side, requested the court to adjourn the hearing of the demolition by kar sevaks
appeals from the Allahabad High Court’s judgment on on December 6, 1992.
September 30, 2010, until after July 15, 2019, that is,
after the next general election. One of them, Kapil Sibal,
pointed out that a “decision in this case will have serious
ramifications”, a statement incontrovertible and obvious.
The government of India was using the courts, he said, to
realise the agenda in the BJP’s election manifesto of 2014
to build a Ram temple. He might have added that it is also
trying to use the courts to realise the other two planks of
its old agenda—abrogation of Article 370 and a uniform
civil code. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to prove
that he succeeded where A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani
failed. Dushyant Dave supported the plea: “Government
is keen to have the court hear these appeals. Don’t fall
into the trap.” So did Rajeev Dhawan. They sought to
withdraw but changed their minds on the court’s
displeasure.
Involved are two issues, the plea for postponement
and counsel’s withdrawal. In a highly charged atmo-
sphere, postponement is not only desirable but obligat-
ory. Precedents support this course. More drastic steps
were taken. In 1974 the Irish Republican Army (IRA)
decided to attack Britain itself. In November 1974, 19
were killed and 182 injured in Birmingham. Six innocent
Irishmen were picked up by the security forces, brutal-
ised and unjustly imprisoned. The Birmingham Six be-
came a cause celebre. They were released years later after
the fraud was exposed and the officials were brought to
book. On October 15, 1993, at the Old Bailey, Justice
Garland held that a fair trial of West Midland Police
officers, charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of
justice, was impossible because of the enormous press
coverage over the two decades. The record shows that in
the Babri Masjid case even judges submitted to popular
clamour.

WHY THE DESPERATE HURRY?

As if to vindicate the three counsel, four days later, on
December 8, addressing an election rally, Narendra
Modi raised the Ram temple issue, in coarsely communal
terms and attacked the Congress not for what it had said
but what its senior member Kapil Sibal had said in the
Supreme Court in a professional capacity. “Clarify
whether you are an advocate of Ram Temple or Babri
Masjid.” This aspersion, which applies to all three coun-
sel, is clearly intended to deter lawyers from appearing
for Muslims. He next attributed Kapil Sibal’s arguments
in court as counsel as the stand of his party, the Congress.
He said they were not answering why they were linking
the Ram Mandir hearing with the Lok Sabha elections.
“Why are you obstructing the disposal of Ayodhya case?”
He had said the same thing on December 6. One might
well ask why he is in such a desperate hurry to secure
what he evidently hopes, a favourable verdict before 2019
(The Times of India, December 9, 2017).
The court cannot ignore the fact that (a) this is a
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
political issue to facilitate a grab for power, and (b) the
country has in Modi one who has been on an election roll
ever since he came to power in Gujarat. Both will in-
tensify. Were it not for this dangerous exploitation of the
Ram temple issue, Modi could not have become Chief
Minister of Gujarat and Prime Minister of India.
BJP AGAINST THE JUDICIAL ROUTE
The BJP formally raised the issue in its Palampur resolu-
tion on June 11, 1989, on the eve of the Lok Sabha
elections, pouring scorn on the judicial process. “It just
cannot be sorted out by a court of law. A court of law can
settle issues of title, trespass, possession, etc. But it just
cannot adjudicate as to whether Babar did actually in-
vade Ayodhya, destroy a temple and build a mosque in its
place. … The sentiments of the people must be respected
and Ram Janmabhoomi handed over to the Hindus—if
30

possible through a negotiated settlement, or else by legis-
lation. Litigation certainly is no answer.” Advani said that
very day, “I am sure it will translate into votes” in the 1989
election. On November 20, 1990, he was asked “So, the
rath yatra did have a political purpose?” Advani replied:
“Yes, it did have [pause]. It did have. I [sic] passed a
resolution in Palampur, it was a political resolution.” The
record damns the BJP completely. On December 3, 1989,
after the general election, he expressed satisfaction that
the issue had contributed to the BJP’s success. On Febru-
ary 24, 1991, as India teetered towards another election,
he was confident that the issue would “influence the
electoral verdict in favour of the BJP”. On June 18, 1991,
he made this pathetic confession; “Had I not played the
Ram factor effectively, I would have definitely lost from
the New Delhi constituency.” In July 1992, he argued in
the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chamber: “You must recognise
31
T H E H I N D U A R C H I VE S
the fact that from two seats in Parliament in 1984 we have
come to 117 seats in 1991. This has happened primarily
because we took up this issue [Ayodhya].”
Behind the BJP’s religio-cultural rhetoric, however,
there has always been cold political calculation. The BJP
leader Sushma Swaraj ripped apart this pretence in Bho-
pal on April 14, 2000, when she admitted that the Ram
Janmabhoomi movement was “purely political in nature
and had nothing to do with religion” (The Telegraph,
April 16, 2000). Arun Jaitley admitted to Robert Blake,
the Charge d’affaires in the privacy of the U.S. Embassy
on May 6, 2005, that “Hindu nationalism was an oppor-
tunistic issue for the party” (The Hindu, March 26, 2011).
Since 1989, the BJP has consistently asserted two
things—the issue is not justiciable, and the court’s verdict
cannot and will not be implemented. “Even where a court
does pronounce on such facts, it cannot suggest remedies
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
to undo the vandalism of history,” the 1989 resolution
said.
The BJP could not have performed a somersault if it
did not feel assured that it would get the temple through a
court verdict. Whatever gave it that assurance? The
somersault is as hideous as the assurance is amazing.
Remember its demands were peremptory and sweep-
ing—no national monument; hand it to Hindus. On
February 15, 1987, Atal Bihari Vajpayee urged Muslims
to give up their claim to the Babri Masjid and hand over
the entire place to the Hindus, who should reciprocate by
allowing the present structure of the mosque to stand as
it is while constructing a temple adjoining it (Indian
Express, February 16, 1987). A two-temple solution: one
within the mosque, another outside it.
On April 6, 1989, Vajpayee demanded: “Hand over
the site to Hindus for that is the only solution for [sic] the
Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute in Ayodhya.”
He rejected the proposal to have the mosque declared “a
‘national’ monument”. Ram and Krishna were Hindu
gods and therefore Hindus were the rightful claimants of
the site. Vajpayee said he spoke as a swayamsewak of the
RSS and as a Hindu (Indian Express, April 7, 1989). Both
Faith vs law
N.A. Palkhivala’s critique of the former Prime Minister
P.V. Narasimha Rao’s idea of seeking the Supreme
Court’s verdict on the Ayodhya issue on the basis of
ancient history.
“The courts can decide only questions of fact or of
law. They cannot decide, and should never be called
upon to decide, question of opinion or belief or political
wisdom. It is not the court’s role to be an extended arm
of the executive. Public opinion of public beliefs may
weigh with the executive in shaping governmental
policies. But it is not for the court to decide whether
there are cogent grounds for opinions or beliefs which
the people may choose to entertain. …
“It is to my mind absurd to suggest that the highest
court in the country should be asked to decide question
of history or archaeology. But the government has now
asked the Supreme Court to give its opinion under
Article 143 of the Constitution, whether a temple exis-
ted centuries ago on the site where the Babri Masjid
stood before. …
“Historians have expressed widely divergent views
on the issue whether there was a pre-existing temple on
the site on which the mosque was built by Babar. Much
less are they agreed that Ram was born at that place.
There is even a greater difference of opinion on the
question whether Ram actually lived as a human being
or he was the supramental ideal created by mythology
to represent the perfect man. To ask the Supreme Court
or the Allahabad High Court to decide such questions of
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
statements were made well before the Palampur
resolution.
This was the first step. In 1992, Advani linked the
Krishnajanmabhoomi and the Vishwanath temple dis-
pute to the campaign as well and said, “It is not without
reason that while I am beginning tomorrow’s yatra from
Varanasi, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi is beginning his from
Mathura.” Asked by a foreign correspondent whether he
would violate court orders in Ayodhya on December 6,
Advani replied, “As a political worker, I have violated
laws” (The Telegraph, December 1, 1992). The politician
is above the law. Any offence he commits becomes a
“political offence”.
Vajpayee said generations to come would never ac-
cept it as a national monument for the sake of political
expediency. Neither could the court settle it. If the court
declared the site as Ramjanmabhoomi, would it be ac-
ceptable to the government, Vajpayee asked. Ram was
born centuries before Babar, and Ram and Krishna were
Hindu gods, therefore, Hindus were the rightful
claimant of the site.
While rejecting the judicial route, Advani accused the
P.V. Narasimha Rao government of drawing the judi-
mythology or history, or mixed questions of mythology
and history, is to bear witness to the bankruptcy of our
political institutions.
“It is a measure of the degradation to which we have
reduced our third-rate democracy that we have lost all
sense of propriety, and are not only willing but eager to
call upon the courts to decide questions of opinion or
belief, history, mythology, or political expediency.
Never in the history of any country have courts been
approached to deal with the type of questions which are
now suggested as fit to be referred to the courts in
connection with the incidents at Ayodhya.
“The consequences of asking the Supreme Court or
the Allahabad High Court to deal with the type of
questions which are suggested for reference would be
disastrous in the long run.
“It would thrust upon the court a task for which it is
not qualified by training or experience. Courts can deal
with questions of law or of fact. They are not qualified to
deal with questions in other fields like archaeology or
history. A judge can decide only upon documentary
evidence or evidence given by a witness as to what he
himself saw or heard. It is well established that hearsay
evidence is inadmissible in a court of law under the
Indian Evidence Act. … If the court is pushed into the
political arena, it would impair the image and under-
mine the status of the court. …large organisations with
millions of followers have officially and openly stated
that they would not be bound by any verdict of the court
of law. The question is not whether they are right or
wrong in adopting this attitude. The real point is that if
a certain issue essentially involves a question of opinion
or belief, the people are entitled to say that a court of law
32

R A J E E V B H A TT
M O H AM M A D S H A M I , whose brother, Fateh
Mohammad, was killed by a marauding mob of kar
sevaks the day after the demolition in Ayodhya. Here seen
with his wife, Amina, on December 8 outside the concrete
house in which they took refuge and saved their lives.
cannot deal with the issue, and if it does its opin-
ion would be without jurisdiction and not binding
on the group which is adversely affected…
“The Supreme Court has to decide the issue
whether there was a pre-existing temple on the
disputed site before the mosque came into exist-
ence. Even a finding on this single point issue
would leave at large various other questions
which are bound to crop up, irrespective of the
court’s finding on the question referred for its
consideration. … Should any religious place of
worship be razed to the ground because a struc-
ture pertaining to another religion stood in its
place before?
“Archaeology is the study of the art, customs
and beliefs of ancient times. It can afford a ground
for a belief or an opinion but never for universal
certainty. Cannot two minds come to different
conclusions on the same archaeological evidence?
How can a conclusion reached by a judge be
binding on people whose opinions or beliefs go
counter to those of the judge? Does it help in any
way to confuse separate and distinct questions?
Whether Rama was born at a particular place is
wholly distinct and different from the issue
whether a temple existed at that place. Therefore,
are we in any way dislodging the beliefs of those
who hold a certain spot to be the birthplace of
Rama by saying that no temple existed there? …
“There are times in a country’s history when
inaction and silence can be a culpable wrong, and
we are living in such times. The nation is standing
on the escalator of anarchy and chaos.”
33
ciary at the highest level “into what is essentially a polit-
ical issue and, besides, a matter of religious faith ... the
executive should not be allowed to use judiciary to thwart
the people’s will”. He added, tongue firmly in cheek: “If
the judiciary today is seen as an instrument to grant what
the government wants, the responsibility for that is
largely on the government.”
Vajpayee said on September 23, 1990, as he bade
farewell on the eve of the rath yatra: “No court can give a
clear verdict on the issue and even if a verdict was forth-
coming no government can implement it.” Advani also
made it clear that the BJP was of the view that on the
Ramjanmabhoomi issue, no court could give a clear ver-
dict. Vajpayee made it clear that the Ram temple would
come up at the disputed place in Ayodhya at any cost and
the BJP was committed to make the temple plan a suc-
cess (The Times of India, September 24, 1990). The RSS
boss M.D. Deoras was as emphatic: “This is not a case in
which the judiciary can pass a judgment. What type of
evidence are the Hindus expected to produce? That Ram
was born and that his birthplace is Ayodhya?” (Organ-
iser, March 12, 1989.)
WHY THE U-TURN?
Now the BJP has not only resiled from its 30-year-old
rejection of the judicial route but is raring to enter it.
Why? The Sangh Parivar’s entire case rests fundament-
ally on a lie that now stands exposed. What exactly
happened on December 22-23, 1949? The RSS journal
Organiser of March 29, 1987, will have us believe that on
the historic morning of December 23, 1949, the idols of
“Sri Ramchandra and Sita Devi miraculously appeared in
the Janmasthan as the Hindu devotees rejoiced over the
miracle and thronged in their thousands”. The govern-
ment proclaimed the premises as disputed and locked
the gates. It is a patently absurd explanation. The truth
about the takeover of the mosque was too shocking to be
admitted. Justice Deoki Nandan Agarwal also took cover
under this “miracle” (Parlance, 1986, page 10).
In truth, the miracle was the climax to a nine-day,
non-stop recitation of the Ramcharitmanas just outside
the mosque organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Ramayana
Mahasabha. There was one man who had the moral
courage to speak up against the outrage and continued
still to denounce it—Akshay Brahmachari (see his inter-
view in Sunday Mail, July 2, 1989). He was then Secret-
ary of the Faizabad District Congress. He wrote to Lal
Bahadur Shastri, then a Minister in the Uttar Pradesh
government, and went on hunger strike twice in 1950. “In
November 1949, I was told that the Muslim graves near
the Babri Mosque were being dug out en masse. I person-
ally went and saw that it was actually so. …
“In the Babri Mosque itself, even after the govern-
ment took possession of it under Section 145 CrPC,
Hindu worship remaining unchecked, only the Muslims
could not say their namaz there. … There is terror in the
hearts of the Muslims of Faizabad, and most of them have
sent their families away to relations living elsewhere. And
some of them have left with all their belongings for good.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
… They are threatened with dire con- A radio message on December 23,
sequences if they will not do so. Muslim 1949, by District Magistrate K.K. Nayar to
shopkeepers are being forced to vacate the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary and
their shops. The boycott of Muslim shops is the Home Secretary: “A few Hindus
openly encouraged. … I do not view this entered Babri Masjid at night when the
question as one of saving the Mosque or Masjid was deserted and installed a deity
Muslims. I view it as saving the great ideals there. … Police picket of fifteen persons
of the Congress and Mahatma for which we was on duty at night but did not, appar-
have been struggling all these days.” ently, act.” On December 26, 1949, K.K.

K A M A L K I S H O R E /P T I
There are 13 incontrovertible docu- Nayar wrote to the Chief Secretary: “In-
ments that prove that Muslims were for- stallation of the idol was carried out in the
cibly ousted that night. Two reports dated night between 22 and 23 instant.” There
December 10 and 23, 1948, by the In- are other written records. Ramchandra
spector of Waqfs, Mohammed Ibrahim, Das Paramhansa’s admission to The New
after visits to the Babri mosque recorded York Times on December 22, 1991, that he
K A P I L S I B A L , counsel
the harassment and stoning of the namazis had installed the idol. Prime Minister
for the appellants in the
going to the mosque. Yet, prayers contin- Jawaharlal Nehru’s wire and letters to
Ayodhya case.
ued to be offered just before dawn and on Chief Minister G.B. Pant. Deputy Prime
Fridays. Minister Vallabhbhai Patel’s letter to Pant
There was official support to an application by on January 9, 1950. Akshay Brahmachari’s letters and
Hindus in 1949 to build a Ram temple on the Chabutra memorandum to Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
near the mosque. The Imam of the Babri Masjid, Abdul Ghafar’s interview
in 1987.
INSTALLATION OF RAM IDOL A written statement in court by the State of Uttar
The first information report on December 23, 1949, Pradesh, signed by Deputy Commissioner, Faizabad,
lodged by Sub-Inspector Ram Dube, Police Station, Ay- J.N. Ugra, on April 25, 1950. Paragraphs 12 and 13 read
odhya, reads thus: “According to Mata Prasad (paper thus: (12) “That the property in suit is known as Babri
No.7), when I reached to [sic] Janam Bhumi around 8 Mosque and it has for a long period been in use as a
o’clock in the morning, I came to know that a group of mosque for the purpose of worship by the Muslims. It
50-60 persons had entered the Babri mosque after had not been in use as a temple of Shri Rama Chandraji.
breaking the compound gate lock of the mosque or (13) That on the night of December 22, 1949, the idols of
through jumping across the walls (of the compound) Shri Rama Chandraji were surreptitiously and wrongly
with a stair and established therein, an idol of Shri Ram put inside it.”
Bhagwan and painted Sita, Ram, etc. on the outer and In The Statesman of October 26, 1986, Chandan
inner walls. … Ram Das, Ram Shakti Das and 50-60 Mitra, now eminence grise of the BJP, quoted an official
unidentified others entered the mosque surreptitiously as saying, “Obviously the guard had been bribed heavily.”
and spoiled its sanctity. Government servants on duty Imam Abdul Ghafar testified that until the end “we used
and several others are witness to it.” to offer namaz inside the mosque and the Hindus prayed
on the chabutra” (Sunday Mail, July 2, 1989).

A good precedent OFFENCES IN LAW

“WILL prayer reach God if you pray from an
illegal property,” remarked the Delhi High Court
on December 12, The Hindu reported on Decem-
ber 13. The court expressed displeasure at the
illegally constructed Hanuman idol in Karol
Bagh in New Delhi.
A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal
and Justice C. Hari Shankar made it clear that
officials responsible for allowing the 108-foot
idol to be erected would be prosecuted.
“Even if we can’t remove the temple, people
who are responsible for it will meet their fate,”
the bench said, after it was informed that the idol
was built in 2002, and the temple along with it
was run by a trust.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
The law is not impotent in such cases. Section 295 and
297 of the India Penal Code make the acts offences in law.
Section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898
empowered the magistrate to require the parties to file
their claims, not on title to the property, but “as respects
the fact of actual possession of the subject of dispute”. He
decides “which of the parties was” in possession. If a party
has been “forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed”, the ma-
gistrate may treat it as if it had been in possession. It is
then restored in possession, leaving it to the aggressor to
file a civil suit to establish his title to the property. In
Ayodhya this very section was used to sanctify the
Muslims’ dispossession.
The Allahabad High Court Bench hearing the Babri
Masjid case held unanimously on September 30, 2010,
that an idol was, indeed, planted in the mosque in the
night of December 22-23, 1949. Is now the judicially
determined fact of a forcible conversion of a mosque into
34

S H A N KE R C H A K R A V A R T Y
W A Z IM R I Z V I , head of the Shia Central Waqf Board and
one of the petitioners in the case, speaking to the media
after the hearing on December 5.
a temple of no consequence in law? Yet, as documented
earlier (A.G. Noorani, Frontline, October 22, 2010), at
every step in the entire judicial process Muslims received
short shrift. By a weird order on September 30, 2010,
Justices Sibgatullah Khan and Sudhir Agarwal ordered a
tripartite partition of the masjid. The portion where Shri
Ram’s idol is kept is given to Hindus. The Nirmohi
Akhara gets a portion including the Ram Chabutra and
Sita Raso. Muslims get the leftovers. No defined area is
assigned to them. Justice Dharam Veer Sharma rejected
the Muslims’ case in toto.
DISTURBING LOGIC
When the appeals came up for admission on May 9, 2011,
Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha found the judgment
“strange”. None had asked for the partition. How did that
Bench get over the admitted fact of the fraud on Decem-
ber 22, 1949? Justices Agarwal and Sharma accepting the
fiction that there existed a Ram temple which Mir Baqi
destroyed to build the Babri Masjid in 1528 and uphold-
ing the primacy to the Hindu faith over the law of the land
is clear breach of their oath of office which judges of the
High Courts and the Supreme Court are sworn to take:
“to uphold the law”. They held that “the rule of adverse
possession is not applicable according to Hindu law”.
They held also: “Once we find that by way of faith and
traditions, Hindus have been worshipping the place of
birth of Lord Rama at the site in dispute, we have no
reason but to hold in a matter relating to such a kind of
historical event that for all practical purposes, this is the
place of birth of Lord Rama.”
35
This approach inspired Justices Agarwal and
Sharma’s deep excursion into the past, beginning with
Mohammed bin Qasim’s invasion in 712. A litany of
“Muslim” outrages follows. “Attack, demolition and con-
struction of mosques and madarsas in place of temples
and religious Institutions had taken place for the last
about 1100 years,” Justice Sharma. This is a disturbing
logic. Was the demolition of the Babri Masjid in justified
retaliation to past wrongs?
The High Court flouted also a unanimous ruling of a
five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court. The Babri
Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992. Parlia-
ment enacted the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya
Act, 1993. On January 7, 1993, the President sought the
Supreme Court’s Advisory Opinion. Section 4(3) of the
Act abated all pending suits in respect of the masjid. This
was struck down by the five judges unanimously on the
ground that it wiped out the Muslims’ case on adverse
possession for over 400 years, assuming a temple had
stood there earlier. The court declined to give the Advis-
ory Opinion.
Yet, the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court
wilfully flouted this ruling. The President’s question re-
jected by the Supreme Court read: “Whether a Hindu
temple or any Hindu religious structure existed prior to
the construction of the Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri Masjid
… in the area on which the structure stood?” (Ismail
Faruqui & Ors. vs. Union of India & Ors. [1994] 6 SCC
360, page 385). Nonetheless, the High Court ordered the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on March 5, 2003,
to answer this very question in these terms: “Whether
there was any temple/structure which was demolished
and mosque was constructed on the disputed site?” On
that single ground of defiance alone, the High Court’s
judgments invite a clear rejection by the Supreme Court.
The case can then proceed, if at all, strictly on the facts
and the law.
‘MISCREANTS BROUGHT THE MOSQUE DOWN’
However, the Supreme Court’s unanimity ended on Sec-
tion 4(3). On other basic issues, it was divided (5-3). One
of the leaders of the Supreme Court Bar has said re-
peatedly that it split on communal lines. There was more
to it than that. The majority judgment delivered by
Justice J.S. Verma on behalf of himself and Chief Justice
of India M.N. Venkatachaliah and Justice G.N. Ray is
disastrous. It is rich in quotes from the Vedas, obiter of no
relevance, with laboured attempts to prove, incredibly,
that the demolition of the masjid harmed Hindus as
much as the Muslims, and what is more, that the mosque
was of lesser consequence to Muslims than a Ram temple
is to Hindus. No such temple existed on October
24,1994; only the idols illegally, immorally planted in a
functioning masjid on December 22-23, 1949. Justice
Verma knew very well that the pending suits, now re-
vived, would be heard by the High Court, which would be
influenced by his remarks. He was quoted profusely. The
Act of 1993 affects the rights of both communities and
not merely those of the Muslim community (page 407),
he held: “The persons responsible for demolition of the
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
mosque on 6.12.1992 were some miscreants who cannot
be identified and equated with the entire Hindu com-
munity and, therefore, the act of vandalism so perpet-
rated by the miscreants cannot be treated as an act of the
entire Hindu community for the purpose of adjudging
the constitutionality of the enactment. Strong reaction
against, and condemnation by the Hindus of the demoli-
tion of the structure in general bears eloquent testimony
to this fact. Rejection of Bhartiya Janata Party at the
hustings in the subsequent elections in Uttar Pradesh is
Right of withdrawal
THE classic case concerning the blackmail of
Hari Singh, later Maharaja of Kashmir, in Lon-
don in 1920 is illustrative of the issue of the right
of withdrawal. After his release from prison the
accused sued some papers for libel. Two cases
were tried before the Lord Chief Justice Hewart.
Serjeant Sullivan was indebted to him for help in
settling down as he moved to practise from Dub-
lin to London. He regarded his client a “loath-
some and repulsive individual”. But Hewart
gradually “became an intolerant little tyrant”.
Sullivan did not decline the brief for reasons
which bear quoting at length in the foul atmo-
sphere in our country. “I could not refuse the
brief although many English counsel would have
thought it within their provenance to do so, for I
had ever maintained as a leader of my native Bar
and continued to maintain that counsel are given
exclusive audience in the High Court of Justice
only on condition that they will place their ser-
vices at the disposal of any one of the King’s
subjects that desires their help. Any other rule
would leave an unpopular man defenceless in the
courts. No one hated Hobbs [the Plaintiff] more
than I did. That could not be, in my opinion, any
excuse for depriving him of legal assistance in the
circumstances of the case.”
In the first trial the jury hastily returned a
verdict for the defendants. Sullivan applied for a
different jury in the second case. Hewart was
furious. Sullivan asked for adjournment of the
case, which was refused. Also refused was leave
to appeal. “I withdrew from the case and left the
court, went into the Court of Appeal and got all I
asked for.” He had read with great effect an
affidavit recording the exchanges with Hewart to
submit that “by reason of the conduct of the Lord
Chief Justice… a fair trial of his [client’s] action
could not be had before the Lord Chief Justice”.
They do not make men and advocates like Ser-
jeant Sullivan any more (Serjeant A.M. Sullivan
Q.C., The Last Serjeant, page 307).
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
another circumstance to that effect. The miscreants who
demolished the mosque had no religion, caste or creed
except the character of a criminal and the mere incident
of birth of such a person in any particular community
cannot attach the stigma of his crime to the community
in which he was born.…
“The miscreants who demolished the mosque are
suspected to be persons professing to practise the Hindu
religion. The Hindu community must, therefore, bear the
cross on its chest, for the misdeed of the miscreants
reasonably suspected to belong to their religious fold.”
How laboured can you get? (paragraphs 53 and 54.) But
at paragraph 6, he admits that “around midday a crowd
addressed by leaders of BJP, VHP [Vishwa Hindu Par-
ishad], etc., climbed the Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri
Masjid (RJM-BM) structure and started damaging the
domes. Within a short time, the entire structure was
demolished and razed to the ground.” The ones put on
trial for conspiracy to commit the crime were leaders
such as Advani and M.M. Joshi, not “miscreants”.
LABOURED OBITER
Justice Verma seeks to prove that while the site of the idol
is important, the site of the mosque is not. Read this:
“While offer of prayer or worship is a religious practice,
its offering at every location where such prayers can be
offered would not be an essential or integral part of such
religious practice unless the place has a particular signi-
ficance for that religion [read: Ram temple at Ayodhya]
so as to form an essential or integral part hereof. Places of
worship of any religion having particular significance for
that religion, to make it an existential or integral part of
the religion, stand on a different footing and have to be
treated differently and more reverentially. … A mosque is
not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam
and namaz (prayer) by Muslims can be offered any-
where, even in open” (paragraphs 78 and 82).
This is both irrelevant and factually wrong. In issue
was the demolition of a particular mosque, a historic
one. It is cruel to tell those who prayed in it that they can
go anywhere elsewhere. How relevant is all this to the
facts of this particular case? Since the objection to acquis-
ition of a house of worship of any community is covered
by precedent, Justice Verma’s additional comments are
pure obiter. But he laboured hard to expatiate on his
obiter at length. It was to prove that the Babri Masjid was
expendable; the site claimed for the Ram temple was not.
Never mind that both Advani and Vajpayee accepted that
none can pin-point the site of Ram’s birth. His remarks
proved very useful to the Hindu side in the High Court
which derailed a judicial process of years by ordering the
excavation of the site.
CORE QUESTION
The case concerned adverse possession—a mosque
standing for over 400 years. Justice Verma himself re-
cognised: “The rival claims to the disputed area which
were to be adjudicated in the pending suits can no longer
be determined therein as a result of the abatement of the
36

S H A N KE R C H A K R A V A R T Y
M A HA N T D H A R A M D A S of the Ayodhya-based
Nirvani Ani Akhara, who is one of the petitioners,
after the hearing.
suits. This also results in extinction of the several de-
fences raised by the Muslim community including that of
adverse possession of the disputed area for over 400
years since construction of the mosque there in 1528 AD
by Mir Baqi. It is clear from the issues framed in those
suits that the core question for determination in the suits
is not covered by the reference made, and it also does not
include therein the defences raised by the Muslim com-
munity.” He recognised that possession was “the core
question”.
Justice Verma’s observations on counsel are a
giveaway. They reveal more than he intended. “It was
particularly heartening to find that the cause of the
Muslim community was forcefully advocated essentially
by the members of the Bar belonging to other communit-
ies” (paragraph 88). This was surely not the first instance
of a suitor of one religion being represented in court by a
lawyer of another. Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhawan and
Dushyant Dave will not find those remarks flattering or
even pleasant. The best research which supports the
Muslims’ case has been done by non-Muslims. This is not
a Hindu-Muslim question. It is a question of survival of
secularism.
Chief Justice Venkatachaliah’s record is pathetic. He
shut his eyes to the peril facing the Masjid despite warn-
ings by the Attorney General, Milon Banerjee. This
writer has documented how his persistent indifference
facilitated its demolition (A.G. Noorani; The Babri
Masjid Question: 1528-2013, Tulika Books, Volume 1,
pages 408-415).
On October 24, 1994, he held Uttar Pradesh Chief
Minister Kalyan Singh guilty of contempt of court, nearly
five years after the offence. For this grave offence he was
37
punished heavily: “A token imprisonment of one day”
and a fine of Rs.2,000. The Chief Justice of India upheld
the majesty of the law—on the eve of his retirement
(Mohammed Aslam vs. Union of India [1994] 6 SCXC at
456). A week after retirement, he said on October 31,
1994: “Secularism cannot mean anti-majority.” Justice
G.N. Ray concurred in his judgment. Justices A.M. Ah-
madi and S.P. Bharucha strongly dissented from the
three. The BJP government made Venkatachaliah Chair-
man of its bogus Constitution Review Committee. No
one cites its report.
Dushyant Dave was surely right in submitting, on
December 5, 2017, that a seven-judge bench was neces-
sary to decide the appeal; also, the court cannot be indif-
ferent to the consequences of its decision in a matter like
this. M.C. Setalvad opined on the Golakh Nath case that
it was “a political judgment” which “paved the way for
political moves which may result in fading the Supreme
Court, so as to alter its complexion”. This was written in
1970 (My Life, page 588). It came true in April 1973 when
three most senior judges were superseded in the appoint-
ment of the Chief Justice of India. Nearly 45 years later,
the court has not fully recovered from that dastardly
blow.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott
case triggered off the Civil War (Dred Scott vs Sandford;
18 Howard 393; 15 L. Ed. 691 [1857]) A black slave was
taken by his master to Illinois where slavery was forbid-
den. He was taken to an area in Louisiana where also
slavery was forbidden by the historic Missouri Com-
promise. He sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court
rejected his claim upholding his owner’s claim to “protec-
tion of private property”. The Missouri Compromise was
held to be unconstitutional.
“There was still hope that American forbearance and
statesmanship would prove equal to finding some com-
promise between the angry forces that were being
aroused by the slave issue. That hope vanished when the
Supreme Court held that the Constitution would allow
no compromise about the existence of slavery in the
territories. Chief Justice Taney had attempted to forestall
the anticipated verdict of coming elections—the verdict
that came with the election of 1860. Now the weary and
weather-beaten old Chief Justice was overmastered by
the violence of forces that he had himself turned away
from compromise in legislative halls and had hurried
toward war” (Robert H. Jackson, The Struggle for Judi-
cial Supremacy, page 327).
QUESTIONS BEFORE THE COURT
It is hard to understand why Chief Justice Dipak Misra
took umbrage at the three counsels’ move to withdraw
from the case (“shock and surprise”). No aspersion was
cast against the judges. They objected to the procedure;
like asking, on reasonable grounds, a judge to recuse
himself from a case, counsel’s right of withdrawal from a
case is well established (see box on page 36). In 1954,
A.S.R. Chari withdrew from court in protest at Justice
S.T. Desai’s conduct of the trial in a libel case by Devdas
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Gandhi, editor of The Hindustan Times, against R.K.
Karanjia, editor of Blitz, whom he was defending.
What the Supreme Court of India might consider
seriously is whether it should proceed with the appeals at
all after quashing the weird partitioning judgment of the
Allahabad High Court, rejecting decisively its view that
faith prevails over the law and that any object wor-
shipped becomes an object of legal protection.
WRONG TURN IN 1990
The case took an altogether wrong turn in 1990. Manoj
Mitta, then Lucknow correspondent of The Times of
India, reported in the issue of June 25, 1990, on the
unique course which the litigation had taken. He
doubted whether it would lead to a solution of the tangle.
He wrote: “Several of the 43 issues framed by the court on
25 May pertain neither to law nor any verifiable fact.
Rather, those issues fall in the grey areas of history,
mythology and religion.
“Here is a sample: ‘Is the property in suit the site of
Janam Bhumi of Sri Ram Chandraji? … ‘Whether any
portion of the property in suit was used as a place of
worship by the Hindus immediately prior to the con-
struction of the building in question? Whether the build-
ing has been constructed on the site of an alleged Hindu
temple after demolishing the same? If so, its effect?”
Justices S.C. Mathur, Brijesh Kumar and S.H.A. Raza
of the High Court were seized of the case. In 1994, the
Supreme Court rejected this approach. In 2003, the High
Court persisted in its old course. By then Justice V.R.
Krishna Iyer had angrily declaimed, on November 10,
1989: “The judiciary will be described as the villain of the
piece.” In his view it lacked the guts to face the issue (The
Times of India, November 11, 1989). A year later, the
Special Bench of the High Court remarked: “It is doubt-
ful that some of the questions involved in the case are
soluble by the judicial process” (The Hindu, November 8,
1990).
Courts can only try cases of a “civil nature” and the
Evidence Act severely restricts the kind of expert evid-
ence admissible in a court of law (Sections 45-49).
When after the demolition of the mosque P.V.
Narasimha Rao toyed with the idea of seeking a verdict
based on ancient history and made a reference to the
Supreme Court, the country’s most highly respected law-
Courts can only try cases of a
“civil nature” and the
Evidence Act severely
restricts the kind of expert
evidence admissible in a
court of law.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
yer, N.A. Palkhivala, subjected it to a scathing and de-
tailed critique which has been vindicated by the
Allahabad High Court (see box).
Even 25 years after the crime of demolition the crim-
inal proceedings have gone nowhere. The Supreme Court
should pause and ask itself whether it would go into
history as recounted by the High Court or base its judg-
ment strictly on the issues of 400 years’ possession and
the conversion forcibly of a mosque into a temple on
December 22, 1949.
More importantly, it might ask itself what the impact
of any judgment would be. Will Narendra Modi imple-
ment a judgment that upholds the Muslims’ case and
rebuild the mosque? If the Hindu case is upheld, as it was
by the Allahabad High Court, Muslims will acquiesce in
it, but, only in bitterness and helplessness. For them the
Supreme Court is not only the court of last resort but the
very last resort. They have received a raw deal at every
stage in a judicial process in this case which has now been
reduced to a juridical and moral wreck after the repeated
abuses of the judicial process. As the great Judge Ben-
jamin Cardozo wrote: “The great tides and currents
which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their
course and pass the judges by.” The record is depressing.
It is also instructive.
Incontrovertible official documents testify to the ex-
istence of a functioning mosque as of December 22, 1949.
It was converted into a temple by force and deceit, sancti-
fied by court ruling over two decades, and demolished on
December 6, 1992. The then Union Home Secretary,
Madhav Godbole wrote: “I visited Ayodhya on 29
December 1992 in connection with the proposed acquisi-
tion of land and to review the law and order arrange-
ments in the light of the earlier decision to permit
darshan. Unlike the other visitors from Delhi in the past
who took darshan at the Ram Lalla temple and offered
pooja there, I did not do so, nor did I accept any Prasad.
Though a devout person myself, I believe that one’s reli-
gion is a personal matter. In any case, I had enough of
Ayodhya and sincerely believed that God could not reside
in that temple, the construction of which was associated
with so much deceit and wanton violence” (Unfinished
Innings, page 406).
Spare a thought. Right now we are a nation in which,
to use learned Learned Hand’s words, the spirit of mod-
eration is gone. Someday, when the passions have sub-
sided if ever any temple is built on the debris of a mosque,
the fruit of crime, it will present to our great nation a
spectacle altogether different from that presented by the
magnificent temples that abound throughout the coun-
try presenting the true face of the noble faith of
Hinduism, its ethics, history and culture. Will the pro-
posed Ram temple be an inspiration or a taunt? And
what will visiting tourists make of it? Indeed, what will
the world make of it?
On the shoulders of the judges of the Supreme Court
lies an enviable burden—the exercise of judicial states-
manship. To quote Cardozo again, “there is no guarantee
of justice except the personality of the judge.” $
38
 RI GHT TO I NF O R M AT IO N

Threat from within

Vacancies in the Central Information Commission, the backlog of
applications and the attempts to weaken the RTI Act raise fresh concerns
about the government’s commitment to transparency. BY A K S H A Y D E S H M A N E

ON December 6, Vigyan
Bhawan, a government-run conven-
tion centre in the heart of Lutyens’
Delhi, was filled with hundreds of
people from across the country—
those implementing the Right to In-
formation (RTI) system and those
using it. They were there to attend
the 12th Annual RTI Convention, a
government-sponsored stocktaking
exercise on the implementation of
the landmark transparency law.
The chief guest and guest of hon-
our were Vice President M. Venkaiah
Naidu and Minister of State (MoS) in
the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra
Singh. Like every year, their speeches
received close attention from those
assembled as their pronouncements
signify the government’s intent, fo-
cus and future commitment towards
the implementation of the RTI
system.
In his half-hour-long speech,
Venkaiah Naidu spoke about the
need for transparency and account-
ability in the conduct of the govern-
ment as envisaged in the RTI Act. He
said: “Information can be empower-
ing if it is authentic and that’s why I
coined a phrase, ‘Information with
confirmation is more than ammuni-
tion’.” Significantly, he suggested
that information must be given to the
applicant in his “mother tongue” or
“at least in the scheduled languages”.
This was well received.
Jitendra Singh’s pronounce-
ments, however, had the opposite ef-
fect, provoking a bit of a controversy.
In his relatively brief address, he
spoke about appointment of Inform-
ation Commissioners (ICs) in the
Central Information Commission
(CIC), the top adjudicating authority
for the RTI Act, and suggested pos-
sible changes to the rules for filing
RTI applications with a stated intent

KAMAL NARANG
PTI/PIB

V I C E P R E S I D EN T M . V E N K AI A H N A I D U addressing the 12th Annual Convention of the Central Information Commission

in New Delhi on December 6. (Right) Minister of State Jitendra Singh, who was guest of honour at the convention.
39 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
of cutting down on the backlog and
the number of applications that are
filed every year. He claimed that “for
the first time” the government had
filled all vacancies of ICs.
With regard to the number of
RTI applications, the Minister said:
“But to reduce pendency, we could
also device a mechanism and that is
my one humble submission. …most
of our information is already avail-
able in public domain. And then why
file an RTI? You file an RTI [for
information] which is already there
on the website. We could at least
have mercy on commission mem-
bers….
“Secondly, we could at least re-
duce those RTIs for which the an-
swer has already been furnished. But
we have developed the habit of spe-
cialising in a particular subject. So if
I know medicine well and I have also
retired from the health department,
then I know, I am an insider; I know
where to file RTI, and I keep doing it
every three months. I remember one
of the predecessors of Shri R.K. Ma-
thur [Chief Information Commis-
sioner, CIC]…. He said there was a
huge liability: 36,000 RTI applica-
tions are pending. I told him, ‘You
are mistaken, the correct figure is
36,003.’ So he looked quite amused.
You know what I wanted to tell him
was that just in the two intervening
days since he had been appointed,
there were three RTIs filed about his
appointment. Now if you file RTI ap-
plications about Information Com-
missioners also, who will deliver?...
So if we just try to be little more
discreet, try to respect the spirit with
which this law has been brought in,
instead of making it a nuisance…
maybe we could have a mechanism
wherein an RTI be filed on the condi-
tion that the person who is filing it
has something to do with that kind of
subject or issue. Not that I file an RTI
on somebody not known also, just
read in the newspaper and then I
invite the accusation of being a pro-
fessional RTI activist, which is a term
I would not like to assign to
anybody….”
This provoked strong criticism
from the National Campaign for
Peoples’ Right to Information (NC-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
PRI), an outfit that has been the
moving force behind the movement
for transparency and the RTI Act.
NCPRI STATEMENT
In a statement, it said: “The NCPRI
strongly disagrees with the sugges-
tion of the MoS. The right to inform-
ation is a fundamental right and
Section 6(2) (of the RTI Act, 2005)
specifically states that a person seek-
ing information is not required to
give any reasons for seeking informa-
tion. Any move to introduce condi-
tions to restrict RTI applications to
only those issues on which a person is
directly connected will not just be
illegal but will also empower PIOs
[Public Information Officers] to ar-
bitrarily reject any RTI application
on the pretext that it does not relate
to the information seeker. Further it
is surprising that the Minister made
these statements in the context of
people seeking information on the
process of appointment of informa-
tion commissioners. In recent
months, the Supreme Court has set
aside appointments of information
commissioners in AP [Andhra Pra-
desh] and Kerala as due process was
not followed in appointments.”
On the Minister’s claim that all
vacancies of ICs had been filled “for
the first time”, the NCPRI stated:
“The Minister recounted that the
BJP government had filled all the
vacancies in the CIC and the CIC
functioned at full capacity of 11 com-
missioners. However, currently
there are 3 vacancies in the CIC with
the first one occurring in December
While
complaints of
RTI misuse are
raised, evidence
for the extent of
misuse is rarely
presented.
40
2016. These vacancies have arisen
out of routine retirement of informa-
tion commissioners. Despite the pas-
sage of more than 11 months, the
government has not made any ap-
pointments of the information com-
missioners. In fact, a representation
sent to the Prime Minister on the
issue was converted to a grievance
and registered on the grievance
portal, which was subsequently
shown as ‘disposed’. We are disap-
pointed to note that the Minister did
not make any reference to the cur-
rent vacancies and did not state in
how much time the vacancies will be
filled. It is pertinent to mention that
a fourth vacancy will come up in
January 2018 when another sitting
commissioner is set to retire. The
NCPRI urges the government to im-
mediately appoint the information
commissioners to fill the 3 vacancies
in a transparent manner.”
Independent RTI activists,
known for their role in exposing cor-
ruption in high office or by promin-
ent personalities, were also upset
with the Minister’s pronounce-
ments. The Delhi resident Subhash
Chandra Agrawal, for instance, is
well known for filing RTIs on issues
of national relevance. In the recent
past, he has filed RTIs about the
Subhas Chandra Bose files and the
Board for Control of Cricket in India.
The Minister’s criticism of “profes-
sional RTI activists” appeared to be
directed towards activists like
Agrawal. Interestingly, though,
Agrawal has been also campaigning
for prevention of misuse of the RTI
act.
Speaking to Frontline, he said:
“My suggestions for preventing mis-
use of the RTI Act are completely
different from the Minister’s. His ar-
gument about filing RTI applica-
tions only for self-interest... [if this
had been the case] perhaps the
earlier government [would] not
[have been] unseated [since the]
RTI Act [was] instrumental in ex-
posing so many scams like CWG
[Commonwealth Games], 2-G, coal
block.”
Agrawal said: “Practical correct-
ive measures like making identity
proof compulsory with every RTI ap-

P R I ME M I N IS T E R N A R E N DR A M O D I with Chief Information
Commissioner R.K. Mathur when he was sworn in at the Rashtrapati Bhavan
in New Delhi on January 4, 2016.
plication, as also directed by Punjab
and Haryana High Court in its ver-
dict dated 02.11.2012 in the matter
Fruit & Merchant Union vs Un-
known [CWP No. 4787 of 2011], and
having a uniform RTI fees of Rs.50
inclusive of copying charges for first
20 copied pages can be instrumental
[in preventing misuse of the Act].”
While complaints about the mis-
use of the RTI are raised, often by
sections of the bureaucracy and the
political class, evidence on the extent
of misuse is rarely presented. In fact,
in his presentation at the convention,
Suresh Chaudhary, Chief Informa-
tion Commissioner of Rajasthan, re-
vealed that an analysis of 44,376 RTI
applications filed by 13,838 appel-
lants from January 2010 to August
2016 found that less than 10 per cent
of the appellants were of the “persist-
ent” or “dedicated” type. Chaudhary
hesitated to call all of these appeals
cases of misuse. He seemed to sug-
gest that the section misusing the
RTI process was less than 10 per
“Draft rules and dissent”, October 13,
2017, and “Diluting a right”, May 12,
2017).
If the draft rules are one cause for
worry among civil society groups, an-
other is the persistence of vacancies
in the CIC. Pending vacancies are
partly the reason for the large back-
log of RTI cases at the Central level.
In 2015, activists filed a public
interest litigation petition in the
Delhi High Court to get the govern-
ment to fill the vacancies in the CIC.
The CIC had four vacancies then, in-
cluding the one for the post of the
commission’s chief. The court ob-
served in March 2015: “We have
heard the learned counsel for both
the parties. Having regard to the un-
disputed fact that the non-appoint-
ment of the Chief Information
Commissioner has virtually frus-
V I J A Y K U M A R J O S H I / PT I
trated the very purpose of the Right
to Information Act, 2005, we are of
the view that it is necessary for this
court to monitor the steps that are
being taken for filling up the vacan-
cies in question so as to ensure that
all the vacancies are filled up within a
time frame.” The court disposed of
the matter in November 2015, and
the following month the government
cent. Clearly, there is an element of appointed former Defence Secretary
exaggeration in concerns about mis- Mathur as Chief Information
use of the RTI Act. Commissioner.
While Mathur has half of his
DRAFT RULES & VACANCIES term still left, the problem of
Jitendra Singh’s suggestions and pending vacancies has arisen once
claims received adverse reactions again, affecting the CIC’s capacity to
primarily because of the context in clear the backlog of claims, which,
which they were made. The Depart- according to Mathur’s speech at the
ment of Personnel & Training convention, was around 26,000 ap-
(DoPT), of which Jitendra Singh is a plications up to March.
junior Minister, handles all policy Perhaps, the Minister would do
and administrative matters regard- well to heed the Vice President’s ap-
ing the RTI Act for the Union gov- peal at the convention while speak-
ernment and is currently in the ing on the backlog: “An early
process of revising the rules that gov- disposal by the Information Com-
ern the Act. The DoPT floated its missions will help citizens get their
proposed draft rules for the RTI for grievances redressed quickly. I
public consultation in March. These would encourage all the commis-
quickly became controversial, with sions to make a concerted, sincere
one prominent non-profit organisa- effort towards speeding up disposal
tion referring to one of the draft rules of cases registered with them. They
as a “death sentence” for RTI users. A must ensure timely and correct in-
serving Central Information Com- formation for the citizens.” To pay
missioner, M. Sridhar Acharyulu, of- heed to this appeal, the government
ficially opposed several draft rules in will have to fill the vacancies in the
a written submission (see Frontline, CIC. $
41 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 Making merry
on bitcoin
The sudden spurt in interest in the cryptocurrency signals a
bubble in the making, but financial markets drunk on speculative
profits continue to fuel the frenzy around it.
B
ITCOIN has left the world of
finance gasping. Although the
total market value of all that
cryptocurrency in circulation is only a
fraction of the value of the world’s
financial assets, the rapid rise in the
value of the currency has made it the
most wanted of those assets. On
January 1, 2017, the currency was
trading between $972 and $990 a
unit. By December 7, it was trading
between $14,063 and $17,363. Ac-
cording to a calculation by Reuters,
an investment of $1,000 in bitcoins at
the beginning of 2013 would be worth
around $1.2 million now. Sensing the
opportunity this offers by serving as a
platform for speculation, the Chicago
Board Options Exchange and
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
launched bitcoin futures on Decem-
ber 10, with the contracts opening at
$15,460 a unit and rising more than
20 per cent to $18,700, before shed-
ding some of those gains.
With these developments, a shad-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
owy currency with a still-elusive ori-
ginator named Satoshi Nakamoto
took centre stage in financial
markets.
Launched in 2009, the role of
bitcoin has always been in question.
What its advocates regard as its
strength—decentralised manage-
ment by a community that can en-
sure integrity through verification of
transactions over a “public”, peer-to-
peer network—many of its critics see
as its weakness because there is
neither an issuing authority in the
form of a central bank nor the back-
ing of a state.
Moreover, while there are a few
establishments that accept bitcoin
payments, the currency is still
nowhere a ubiquitous means of pay-
ment in day-to-day exchange and
commodity circulation. At the end of
2013, researchers from the Univer-
sity of San Diego and George Mason
University estimated that 64 per cent
of the 12 million bitcoins that had
42
been mined until then had not been
used in an exchange transaction.
One advantage of the currency is
that transactions involving move-
ments of large volumes of money
across space and borders can be con-
ducted without revealing the identity
of the transactor. Not surprisingly,
criminals of various kinds have been
using the currency to transfer funds.
For example, demand for bitcoins
initially rose because drug dealers
were making payments with the cur-
rency on the Silk Road website. Since
then there have been many reports
about the links between illegal activ-
ities and the bitcoin market.
A high-profile example is Alexan-
der Vinnik, who was arrested in
Greece in July this year. He is ac-
cused by the United States Ministry
of Justice of laundering more than
$4 billion, derived from activities
suspected to be illegal, using the bit-
coin exchange BTC-e that he was al-
legedly running.
 Most miners or buyers of bitcoins
are looking to gain from appreciation
in its value as the currency is adopted
more widely. If indeed the currency
is widely adopted, its price is bound
to rise because there is a limit on the
number of bitcoins that can be put
into circulation. Bitcoins are “mined”
by players by solving complex math-
ematical puzzles that require com-
bining guesses with running
algorithms. Each step creates a block
of transactions linked or chained to
the puzzle in the previous block—
hence the term “blockchain”. When
the puzzle is solved the miner is re-
warded with an allocation of
bitcoins.
However, the process of generat-
ing new bitcoins is planned and the
total volume to be generated is
capped. The cap is 21 million bitcoins
and the pace of their generation is
adjusted downwards so that the cap
is reached only in 2140. As of now,
around 16.7 million bitcoins have
been released. Since it is a store of
value, there is no reason why any-
body “earning” bitcoins by sale of a
good or service must spend that
money immediately. So, as GDP in-
creases and the volume of transac-
tions expands, the volume of
currency in circulation must in-
crease.
The fact that this is not expected
to happen with bitcoin implies that
its creators assume that a combina-
tion of increase in value and the easy
“divisibility” of a digital currency
would solve the problem.
The fact that only a limited
amount of the cryptocurrency is
available indicates that if demand for
the currency increases for some
reason, such as it being an alternative
store of value to money and financial
assets of various degrees of liquidity,
then its price determined by auctions
in bitcoin exchanges would rise to
accommodate the value being de-
manded. When the value of the cur-
rency appreciates, investors looking
for capital gains will join the game,
and prices can spiral.
Interestingly, bitcoin was
launched at the time of the global
financial crisis in 2008-09, when the
value of most financial assets and
was restricted to those from the “bit-
coin community”, the virtual cur-
rency had little value in terms of real
currency.
Moreover, safety is by no means
ensured. According to reports, more
than 980,000 bitcoins have been
stolen from exchanges, a stark ex-
ample being the hacking of the min-
D A V I D G R A Y / RE U T E R S
ing exchange NiceHash in early
December 2017, through which
around 4,700 bitcoins worth around
$70 million were stolen and trans-
ferred to a mystery account. Despite
A T A N E S T A BL I S H M E N T in
such developments, over time small
Sydney, Australia, that accepts increases in demand were enough to
payment in bitcoin. keep bitcoin prices rising. Those
price increases attracted new in-
vestors, and in keeping with the
even of others like real estate had tendency to run with the herd that is
fallen sharply. Simultaneously, cent- typical of financial investors, de-
ral banks in the U.S., the United mand soared and so did prices.
Kingdom and subsequently Europe Bitcoin has suddenly become the
resorted to a policy of quantitative much-discussed, or even the most-
easing to save banks and financial discussed, of all new assets in the
firms. This involved buying up finan- market. That is surprising given the
cial assets to inject large volumes of size of the bitcoin business. Accord-
cheap liquidity into the system. Since ing to estimates, despite the spike in
2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve has prices the total value of the bitcoin
bought bonds worth around $4 tril- “market” is around $270-280 billion,
lion. which is just a fraction of that of
The Bank of England, the Bank traditional financial assets.
of Japan and the European Central Moreover, the bitcoin shortage
Bank followed. All told, six central means that if investors hold on to the
banks that opted for this policy now available currency in the hope that
hold four times as much assets on prices would rise further, trading in
their balance sheets as they did be- the market would be limited. It is the
fore the crisis. With interest rates too recognition of this that is triggering
at long-term lows, this liquidity has the launch of bitcoin-based securit-
found its way into speculative invest- ies so that there is more space for
ments in asset markets, resulting in speculative bets to be placed, espe-
asset price inflation that has been cially by new investors.
troubling institutions like the Bank To spur the futures markets,
of International Settlements. In a “analysts” are predicting that the
speculative environment like this, value of the currency could touch
financial institutions, fearing that $50,000 or even $100,000 a piece.
traditional markets are saturated, This frenzy says more about the fin-
are always looking for alternative as- ancial markets these days than it
sets. Even an asset like gold, the price does about bitcoin. Commentators,
of which rose sharply over the decade ranging from Nobel Prize winners in
starting 2001, has been losing its Economics to so-called financial
sheen in recent years. market leaders, have described the
In itself there was no reason to goings-on as a bubble.
expect that bitcoin would emerge as Yet the cryptocurrency has be-
an alternative asset, since there was come an instrument for an industry
nothing endowing it with value other that remains drunk on speculative
than the state of demand relative to profits despite the 2008 financial
the limited quantity being put into crisis. Whether this was planned or is
the market. So long as that demand accidental is, however, not clear. $
43 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 EV EN TS

Nuclear glasnost
The “Public dialogue-forum AtomEco 2017”, organised in Moscow on
November 21 and 22, discussed the pros and cons of nuclear power
generation and its future. B Y T . S . S U B R A MA N I A N R E CE N T L Y I N M O S C O W

IT was a conference that was ec-
lectic in its proceedings to the point
of discussing embarrassing topics
too. If the underlying thrust of “Pub-
lic dialogue-forum AtomEco 2017”,
organised in Moscow on November
21 and 22, was to assert that “nuclear
power is green energy” and that “nuc-
lear energy is one of the most effi-
cient systems” of generating
electricity, there was also a readiness
to acknowledge that “switching over
to renewable energy is not something
for tomorrow but today”.
The topics the conference dis-
cussed were remarkable for their
sheer variety: how atoms formed a
unique tool with which human be-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
ings can meet the most fundamental
challenges in agriculture, food sup-
ply and medicine; public acceptance
of nuclear power; ethics in decision-
making; the Arctic and the atom;
Russia’s mastery in decommission-
ing research reactors, power reactors
and nuclear weapons; the closed
nuclear fuel cycle as the basis of clean
nuclear power; the reprocessing of
spent fuel; radioactive waste man-
agement; the need to develop small-
capacity reactors for production of
isotopes used in nuclear medicine;
women occupying top positions in
nuclear industry; and so on.
The plenary session, “Clean en-
ergy for future generations”, stood
44
out for the insightful observations
made, as did two other sessions: “The
formats of public hearings in the
construction of nuclear power
plants: the Russian and the foreign
experience” and “The Arctic and the
Atom: environment and
development”.
The conference was organised by
Rosatom State Atomic Energy Cor-
poration, the overarching organisa-
tion under which fall several
companies that are responsible for
the mining of uranium, its enrich-
ment, fabrication of fuel assemblies,
manufacture of nuclear power com-
ponents, building of reactors, and so
on. Rosatom commands 17 per cent

COURTESY ROSATOM
T H E P L E NA R Y S E S S I ON
“Clean energy for future
generations” of AtomEco 2017
organised by Rosatom on
November 21 and 22 in Moscow.
of the world’s nuclear fuel market
and is a leader in the construction of
nuclear power projects. It has $133.4
billion of overseas orders, including
those to build reactors in
Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt,
Finland, Hungary and Iran.
The AtomEco 2017 (Atom Plus
Ecology) hosted as many as 1,100
participants from 19 countries, in-
cluding Germany, Hungary, India
and Indonesia. With President
Vladimir Putin of the Russian Feder-
ation declaring 2017 as the year of
ecology, it was no surprise that the
plenary session was on clean energy
for future generations.
Combating carbon dioxide emis-
sions is a huge technological chal-
lenge and hence the conference
assumed importance, the speakers
said. They emphasised that issues
like countries accepting or rejecting
the Kyoto Protocol or the recom-
mendations of the United Nations
Climate Change Conference held in
Paris in November-December 2015
were “tricky political matters”. Coun-
tries changed their position depend-
ing on politics, and the number of
countries that would agree to a vol-
untary cut in greenhouse emissions,
subsequent to the Paris conference,
would be known by November 2018,
they said. Incidentally, nuclear
power stations generated 38 per cent
of global “green” electric power.
Public acceptance of nuclear
power generated a lot of debate. Kir-
ill Komarov, first deputy director
general for corporate development
and international business, Ros-
atom, pointed to a “paradoxical situ-
ation” in which the level of public
acceptance was higher among people
who lived closer to a nuclear power
plant. “It would seem that people,
who live in the vicinity of a nuclear
power plant should be afraid because
if anything happens, they will be the
first to suffer. However, they are not
afraid because they have maximally
fair and direct information,” he said.
He argued that the only way to
achieve public acceptance of nuclear
power was to provide information
about it. Komarov said: “We must be
open and carry on a dialogue. It is not
by chance that our conference is
called not just a forum but a forum-
dialogue. Our main goal is to deliver
information, respond to certain con-
cerns and bring stability into these
relations, thus creating a basis for
successful nuclear power
development.”
Gloria Kwong, acting head of the
Radioactive Waste Management and
Decommissioning Working Area,
The Nuclear Energy Agency of the
Organisation for Economic Cooper-
ation and Development (OECD),
said: “In a nutshell, what is import-
ant is communication.” The Interna-
tional Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) was convinced that “a top-
down approach” in communicating
with people in garnering support for
nuclear power would not wash with
people in India or any other country.
The session on “The Arctic and
the Atom: environment and devel-
opment” stressed the need for a
45
stable and steady power supply for
the development of the Arctic region,
which is rich in hydrocarbons. The
Russian delegates pointed out that
the USSR had dumped nuclear-
powered submarines, decommis-
sioned reactors and containers with
radioactive waste in several locations
in the Arctic and spoke of the need to
clean up the Arctic.
TRANSITION TO RENEWABLES
The plenary session started on a
lively note with Stanislav Naumov,
president of the Russian Public Rela-
tions Association, pointing out that
several European scientists had
raised the pitch for renewable energy
sources to be a reality today rather
than a long-term forecast. He said:
“To this end, they argue that the use
of renewable energy sources is eco-
nomically more beneficial than the
use of energy based on fossil fuels
and nuclear energy. What is the per-
ception of Rosatom on this? Is the
search for new projects on renew-
ables connected with attempts to
meet these trends?”
Komarov acknowledged that
switching over to renewable forms
was the need of the hour. “Alternat-
ive energy is not exotic,” he said. Rus-
sia was keen on knowing the existing
trends of renewable sources of en-
ergy, he said, and added: “Alternat-
ive energy has long ceased to be such.
Billions of dollars are being spent on
solar and wind energy. The capital
expenditure [in erecting solar and
wind power plants] has reduced sig-
nificantly. That is good news.
Whether the world is ready to accept
power consumption based solely on
them [wind and solar energy], I
don’t think the answer is ‘yes’. These
technologies are weather-depend-
ent.”
Komarov cited the example of
Germany, which had decided to exit
from nuclear power and announced
“a dramatic increase” in the genera-
tion of renewable energy to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. He
claimed, quoting experts, that car-
bon dioxide emissions had been
growing in Germany for the past sev-
eral years owing to the use of fossil
fuels for power generation. “So there
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 Russian reactors for Bangladesh
IN what could be a significant devel-
opment for both Russia and India,
two VVER-1200 reactors of Russian
design will be built near Rooppur in
Bangladesh. The first pour of con-
crete for the foundation of the first
unit took place on November 30,
2017, at Ishwardi village, near
Rooppur, about 160 km from
Dhaka. The first pour signals the
start of the main construction
phase. The reactors have an in-
is no escaping the fact that carbon
dioxide emissions are growing [even
when] wind generation is used at full
power. It indicates that with all the
positive features associated with the
development of renewables world-
wide, we do not consider them an
alternative source to nuclear power,”
he said.
Mikhail Chudakov, Deputy Dir-
ector General and Head of the De-
partment of Nuclear Energy, IAEA,
Vienna, asserted: “Without nuclear
power, we shall neither fulfil the con-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
T H E FI R S T P O U R O F C O NC R E T E for the foundation of the first of two
VVER-1200 reactors at Rooppur on November 30, 2017. The reactors have an
installed capacity of 1,200 MWe each.
stalled capacity of 1,200 MWe each.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina and Director General of
Rosatom State Atomic Energy Cor-
poration Alexy Likachev attended
the event.
“With the first pour of the con-
crete for the Rooppur Nuclear
ditions of the COP climate change
conference [on reducing carbon di-
oxide emissions] nor achieve the
goals of sustainable development.”
In many countries, including Russia,
the Netherlands, Finland and Slov-
akia, public support for nuclear
power has exceeded 50 per cent. This
support alone is not enough to build
new nuclear power plants for ful-
filling the conditions of the climate
change conference. To meet those
conditions, it was necessary to build
20 nuclear power units right now
46
COURTESY ROSATOM
Power Project [RNPP] begins the
realisation of a dream. We enter the
nuclear world, which is a matter of
great pride and honour for us as a
nation. We are grateful to Russia
and the Russian people for this,”
Sheikh Hasina said.
Likachev said: “Similar plants
and 31 nuclear power units in the
2030s, each with a capacity of one
GW, he said.
Chudakov said public acceptance
of nuclear power should be trans-
formed into public demand. “We saw
this in Armenia when people voted
for the closure of nuclear power
plants and then for the resumption of
their operation,” he said. He sugges-
ted that the public should be shown
the real advantages of nuclear power
and the energy security it brought
about. For instance, hundreds of
with the innovative VVER-1200 are
already operational in Russia. We
will pay as much attention and care
to RNPP in Bangladesh as we do in
Russia.”
Atomstroyexport (ASE), which
forms part of the engineering divi-
sion of Rosatom, will build the re-
actors at Rooppur. All the reactor
components, including the reactor
vessels, turbines and steam generat-
ors, will be shipped to Rooppur
from Russia. The reactors will use
enriched uranium as fuel, and light
water as both coolant and moder-
ator. The spent fuel from the two
reactors will be sent back to Russia.
The construction of these two
units means new orders for Russian
companies and jobs in Russia.
About 12,000 Russian specialists,
including designers, engineers,
equipment-fabricators and electri-
city engineers, will be involved in
the construction. At present, the
foreign order portfolio of Rosatom
includes building 34 nuclear power
reactors in 13 countries, including
Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt,
Finland, Hungary, Iran and India.
INDIAN CONNECTION
Bangladeshi engineers who will be
appointed as operators of the
VVER-1200 reactors at Rooppur
will be trained at Kudankulam in
Tamil Nadu, where two
VVER-1000 reactors are functional
and two more are under construc-
tion. Two more VVER-1000 units,
fifth and sixth, will come up at
thousands of kW/hour of electricity
could be generated using one kilo-
gram of uranium. A nuclear power
plant with an installed capacity of
one GW needed only three sq km of
land, but wind turbines with similar
capacity would occupy 900 sq km.
Besides, windmills depended on the
vagaries of the weather. “It is, there-
fore, necessary to speak about the
real situation at all levels. We need to
talk the truth about nuclear power,”
Chudakov said.
Currently, 30 countries are oper-
Kudankulam. While Russia sup-
plied all the components for its re-
actors at Kudankulam, the Nuclear
Power Corporation of India Limited
built them. Informed sources said
that several Indian companies,
which took part in the construction
of the Kudankulam reactors, might
like to bid for the Rooppur reactors
when tenders are floated.
Shah Nawaz Ahmed, senior Ad-
viser (India, Middle East and South
East Asia), World Nuclear Associ-
ation, has been quoted as saying:
“Bangladesh is cooperating with
Russia to build two 1,200 MWe
VVER units similar to the
Kudankulam plant. This has big im-
plications for Bangladesh as it will
get a source of power which is clean
and has a 24/7 base load. For India,
[the Russian] cooperation with
Bangladesh is a positive step. Many
Indian firms involved in the con-
struction of the Kudankulam plant,
we are hopeful, will be able to supply
material for construction [at
Rooppur].”
The two VVER-1200 units are
being built under the framework of
an inter-government agreement
signed on November 2, 2011,
between Bangladesh and Russia.
The RNPP will cost about $12.65
billion. The Bangladesh Atomic En-
ergy Corporation and the
Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regu-
latory Board will supervise each
stage of the construction.
The VVER-1200 units have lay-
ers of features called defence-in-
ating 450 commercial nuclear power
units with an installed capacity of
3,91,000 MWe. This amounts to 5
per cent of the world’s installed capa-
city and 11 per cent of the electricity
generated. Fifty-seven reactor units
are under construction in various
countries. Another 30 countries have
plans afoot to build nuclear power
reactors. It was estimated that to
comply with the terms of the Paris
climate conference COP21, the world
needed to have 1,000 GWe of in-
stalled capacity of nuclear power and
47
depth/redundancy, which are a
unique combination of active and
passive safety systems. The
Bangladesh media have quoted Al-
exander Khazin, senior vice presid-
ent for international projects of the
ASE group of companies, as saying
that the passive safety systems will
function even when power supply
fails totally. They will provide safety
without the functioning of the active
systems or the operator’s interven-
tion. For instance, the passive heat
removal system will cool the fuel
core if all other power supply
sources fail. There is a “core-
catcher” [a tank with a huge pool of
water] at the bottom of the reactor
vault and in case a of loss-of-coolant
accident the molten core will fall
into the core-catcher. The core-
catcher will cool the molten fuel and
ward off radioactive leakage into the
environment, Khazin has been
quoted as saying. The VVER-1200
units will have a double contain-
ment dome to prevent radiation
from leaking into the atmosphere in
case of an accident. The reactor
buildings can withstand tornadoes,
cyclones and missile attacks.
Lessons from the Fukushima ac-
cident in Japan in 2011 have been
taken into consideration in design-
ing the VVER-1200 units. They
have been designed in accordance
with Russian and European regu-
latory requirements, and Interna-
tional Atomic Energy Agency
standards.
T.S. Subramanian
25 per cent of the world electricity
sale by 2050, Chudakov said.
According to the IAEA’s annual
projections, the dynamic energy de-
velopment scenario showed that the
demand for nuclear energy would
keep increasing despite the
Fukushima accident of 2011. De-
mand is projected to grow by 2.5 to
three times, while generation re-
mains at the same level. “The ques-
tion is how to sustain this dynamic
trend without pitting nuclear energy
against renewables? On opposite
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
sides must be carbon energy and car-
bon-free energy, where nuclear
power must eventually be the basis
for carbon-free energy,” he said.
After Chernobyl (1986) and
Fukushima, a wide range of pro-
grammes helped ratchet up safety in
nuclear power stations in various
countries, Chudakov said. For in-
stance, special hydrogen traps were
installed to prevent hydrogen explo-
sions inside the containment dome
of nuclear reactor buildings. “Be-
sides, all new post-Fukushima safety
requirements issued by the IAEA
had been addressed in generation 3+
reactors which have been success-
fully installed in Russia. An innovat-
ive reactor called VVER-1200 of this
generation has been recently in-
stalled at Novovoronezh Nuclear
Power Plant unit six. The same type
of reactor, with all passive and active
safety systems, is under commission-
ing at Leningrad Nuclear Power Pro-
ject-2. Russia is the first country to
have built such power reactors,” he
said. “In turn, the IAEA defines
safety principles and prepares re-
lated documents, helping to develop
national safety and security systems
at nuclear facilities. To this end, the
national regulator of various coun-
tries issues the regulatory frame-
work, whose requirements are much
more stringent than those of the
IAEA. The international expert re-
views conducted by the IAEA con-
form to the highest level.”
PUBLIC HEARINGS
While several interesting papers
were presented on topics such as
nuclear medicine and oncology, isol-
ation of radioactive waste and the
ecological aspects of mining
uranium ore, the most popular ses-
sion was the one on public hearings:
“Modern formats of interaction with
the public in the construction of nuc-
lear power plants—the Russian and
the foreign experience”. The star of
the session was Antal Kovacs, Dir-
ector of Information and Public Re-
lations of the Paks Nuclear Power
Plant in Hungary. Incidentally, he
won the Olympic Gold in Judo at the
1992 Barcelona Games at the age of
19 and became the world champion
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
the following year. Kovacs traced the
history of public hearings in Hun-
gary and how their format had
changed over the years.
“It was almost a military opera-
tion,” he said, when the first public
hearing was held in 1995 in Hungary
on the extension of the life of a nuc-
lear power plant. It was time-limited
and the questions were short and
replies brief. Subsequently, parti-
cipants were allowed to formulate
their questions beforehand. People
belonging to countries that bordered
Hungary were allowed to formulate
questions. “We got 40,000 questions
from different borders and states of
the European Union.... Some of them
had developed a negative attitude to-
wards the whole process,” he said.
On the basis of this experience,
the Hungarian authorities changed
the style of public hearings. “We did
not set any time limits because we
knew we had to give exhaustive
replies to questions from the public,”
Kovacs said. For a public hearing on
the construction of the Paks 2 pro-
ject, he said: “A question was re-
peated 16 times in a sequence and we
never lost our cool.... Some questions
had provocative intentions. We were
tested and tried.”
Apparently, media representat-
ives too held a negative attitude to-
wards the nuclear industry. The city
and project representatives stayed
calm and answered all the questions,
he said. The public hearing lasted
until early morning the next day.
“Paks 2 represents an extreme exper-
ience and such public hearings have
brought their own fruits. Even the
strictest defenders of the environ-
ment recommended that public
hearings represented the best prac-
tice that should be followed” before a
project was begun, Kovacs said.
The longest public hearing went
on for two days, in Germany. “All the
people who took part in it were not
professionals but were against nuc-
lear power. They were asking the
same questions again and again, and
we patiently answered them.”
Svetlana Churilova, head of the
Communications Department,
Rosenergoatom, Russia, referred to a
“newsreel” shown before a public
48
hearing was held, which said that
nuclear power plants would trigger
genetic mutations and babies would
be born with several eyes.
It was not as if public hearings
would be organised only when a pro-
ject was planned. They were held
several times during the life cycle of a
nuclear power station: before the
construction began, during commis-
sioning, while increasing the react-
or’s output, during decommissioning
of the facility, and so on. “We have a
continuous cycle of dealing with the
public,” Svetlana Churilova said.
About 200 public hearings had
been held so far in various federal
districts of Russia, a speaker said. In
2015, a public hearing attracted
6,500 participants. Mormunsk and
other cities have passed resolutions
giving details on how to organise
public hearings. “Public hearings are
popular among employees of Ros-
atom. Today, nuclear power has ab-
solute acceptance in the Russian
Federation as shown by opinion
polls,” he said.
Rosatom followed several prin-
ciples when it tried to forge public
acceptance of its nuclear power pro-
jects, said Anna Kasimovskaya, head
of the Communications Section, De-
partment of Communications, Ros-
atom International Network. They
were in full compliance with IAEA
recommendations; followed the let-
ter of law; established direct contact
with stakeholders; combined the
best practices of Rosatom and those
of the country where the reactors
were to be installed; and promoted
openness and transparency and dis-
semination of basic knowledge about
nuclear science and radiation.
“We in Rosatom believe that an
open dialogue is the foundation to
build communication,” Anna
Kasimovskaya said. “We need to
work with our stakeholders, advoc-
ates of nuclear power and also deal
with its opponents. Opposition to
nuclear power is because of lack of
understanding about it. People are
eager to listen to all the myths in-
stead of cultivating a reasoned un-
derstanding about it.”
Decommissioning of research re-
actors, commercial power reactors

and nuclear weapon facilities was
another subject that commanded in-
terest during the conference. There
are several Russian women experts
in this field and they spoke about
Russia’s mastery in this difficult do-
main. Fifty-three nuclear weapon fa-
cilities have been decommissioned
so far in Russia. This includes two
reactors that were generating
plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Elena Artemova, head of the Pro-
ject on International Sales of Service
for Decommissioning the Nuclear
Fuel of “Techsnabexport”, said: “We
in Russia have taken a big step for-
ward for the final isolation of radio-
active waste and we are constructing
a big laboratory for storing it. Russia
has a systematic and full-scale activ-
ity for decommissioning of nuclear
power plants, including dismantling
them and a long period of observa-
tion. Dismantling of nuclear facilit-
ies is a demonstrated approach in
Russia.”
Decommissioning of nuclear fa-
cilities received much attention dur-
ing the plenary. Speakers
highlighted the role of Kurchatov In-
stitute, Moscow, in Russia mastering
the technology of closing the nuclear
T H E S E S S I O N on public hearings relating to nuclear projects saw an
interesting presentation by Antal Kovacs (third from right). Kovacs was the judo
champion in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.
fuel cycle, reprocessing the spent
fuel, storing the radioactive waste,
decommissioning research and
power reactors, and in extending the
life of power reactors by forging new
materials. Kurchatov Institute,
which will be celebrating 75 years of
its founding in 2018, is the lead or-
ganisation in research and develop-
ment of nuclear energy in Russia.
Kurchatov Institute has enough
expertise in decommissioning react-
ors. A research reactor situated on its
premises in Moscow was among
those it decommissioned. “It was
done in the heart of the city, without
any threat to the safety of the people.
This expertise can be translated to
other nuclear power reactors,” said
Andrey Korolyov, deputy president
of Kurchatov Institute.
It has also done enormous work
on the closing of the nuclear fuel
cycle. “This means we will reprocess
the spent fuel. We have built up con-
fidence [in ourselves] that we can
treat the spent fuel and the radioact-
ive waste. We have created facilities
49
COURTESY ROSATOM
for storing them.” The institute has
also done enough work on develop-
ing new materials for various reactor
components, which could extend the
life of the reactors to 80 to 100 years.
According to Oleg Uratov, Public
Council Member, Rosatom, Russia
had so far decommissioned six power
reactors. This includes the world’s
first nuclear power reactor at Obn-
insk, Kaluga region, about 100 km
from Moscow. The five MWe reactor
went critical in 1954. It was decom-
missioned about five years ago. In
addition to two research reactors in
Moscow that were decommissioned,
Russia has decommissioned several
of its nuclear-powered submarines
and ice-breakers.
German participants in the
AtomEco 2017 said an old nuclear
power plant, close to the Dutch bor-
der, was being decommissioned
right now. There were other plants
too that were being decommis-
sioned. “Some of them have been
shut down and their fuel elements
taken out,” they said. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 WO RLD A FFA IRS

Woe to Jerusalem
Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,
against international opinion, legitimises Israel’s brutal
occupation of the city and dumps the two-state solution for the
Israel-Palestine dispute. BY JOHN CHERIAN
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 50
 embassy did not have the courtesy to mention the State of
Palestine even once.
Trump said that recognising Jerusalem as the capital
of Israel was the “right thing to do” and criticised his
predecessors in office for failing to do so. He insisted that
Palestinians “must come to the table knowing that the
bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely,
truly unbreakable”. There was nothing on offer for
Palestinians except a few platitudes and warnings to
desist from violence. Palestinians, Trump solemnly
opined, should “respond to disagreement with reasoned
debate, not violence”. According to reports in the U.S.
media, the Secretaries of State and Defence, Rex Tiller-
son and James Mattis, had warned Trump against taking
such a dangerous and precipitate step.
East Jerusalem is the designated capital of the
Palestinian state. It is a city where the people belonging
to the three faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, coex-
isted peacefully until the Zionist project was imposed on
the region by the colonial powers. The status of Jerus-
alem, along with the right of return and statehood, are
the three main pillars of the Palestinian movement.
These principles will never be given up. Trump’s recogni-
tion of Jerusalem coincided with the centenary of the
infamous Balfour Declaration (a statement by Britain in
November 1917 supporting the establishment of a home
for the Jewish people in Palestine), which led to the
creation of the Zionist state and the uprooting of the
Palestinian people from their ancestral lands. The Al
Aqsa mosque, among the holiest sites for Muslims, is
located in Jerusalem. Right-wing parties in Israel are
demanding control of the site saying that the mosque was
built on the site where the Temple Mount, one of Juda-
ism's holiest sites, had existed.
K E V I N L A M A R Q U E /R E U T E R S

UPROAR IN ARAB STREETS

The reaction from the Palestinian and Arab streets, as
expected, was an angry one. There were huge protests in
faraway Indonesia and
Malaysia, too. The
Hamas leadership
warned that Trump’s
P R E SI D E N T D O N AL D T R U M P holds up the
decision “had opened
proclamation recognising Jerusalem as the capital
the doors of hell”. The
of Israel during an address from the White House in
Hamas leader, Ismail
Washington, D.C., on December 6.
Haniya, called on
Palestinians to launch a
IN A MOVE LOADED WITH DECEIT, CYNICISM third “intifada” (upris-
and contempt for Palestinians, United States President ing) until such time the
Donald Trump made good his campaign promise of Israeli occupation of
moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Palestinian land ended.
Jerusalem, in the process giving de jure recognition to “Trump can never
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Until now the U.S. was change the reality of
masquerading as an honest broker in the never-ending history, geography and
peace talks for a “two-state” solution between Israel and the identity of the holy
the Palestine. It was the U.S. that had promised city,” he said. Mah-
Palestinians a separate state after they were virtually moud Abbas, the
coerced into signing the Oslo accord in 1993. Trump, in Palestinian Authority
his provocative speech authorising the shifting of the U.S. (P.A.) President, de-

51 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

M U H A MM A D H A M E D / R EU T E R S
P A L E S T IN I A N P R E S ID E N T Mahmoud
Abbas. (Below) Hamas leader Ismail Haniya.
SAID KHATIB/AFP
scribed Trump’s decision as “deplorable” but he is against
launching another intifada. His administration has been
accused of not taking a tough stand as the Israeli govern-
ment appropriated or demolished Palestinian homes in
Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers. Jerusalem,
which had a majority Palestinian population before 1967,
is now a Jewish majority city. Even so, more than 40 per
cent of the population in the holy city consists of
Palestinians. The P.A. had allocated less funds for the
welfare of the residents of Jerusalem than it had for the
rest of the West Bank.
Feeling let down by the U.S., the P.A. has announced
that the U.S. Vice President, Mike Pence, was not wel-
come in the West Bank. He was scheduled to have a
meeting with Abbas in late December during his visit to
the region. The spiritual heads of al Azhar University and
the Coptic Church in Egypt also declined to meet Pence.
Three protesters were killed and more than 800 civilians
injured in the protests by Palestinians in Jerusalem, the
occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip soon after
Trump’s speech. The Israeli Air Force carried out attacks
on Gaza allegedly in retaliation for two rockets being
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
fired into Israel, injuring 25 Palestinians, including six
children. In the Jordanian capital, Amman, angry pro-
testers gathered near the U.S. embassy and burnt U.S.
flags and pictures of Trump with the words “go to hell”. In
Jakarta, more than 10,000 people rallied outside the U.S.
embassy. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said
Trump’s move was in violation of United Nations resolu-
tions. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in
the world, has refused to establish diplomatic contacts
with Israel.
INDIA’S RELUCTANCE
India, which was among the first states to recognise the
State of Palestine, did not criticise the U.S. action. The
External Affairs Ministry issued a mild statement: “In-
dia’s position on Palestine is independent and consistent.
It is shaped by our views and interests, and not determ-
ined by any third country.” There was no mention of
India’s consistent stand that East Jerusalem was the
capital of the State of Palestine or that India supports the
two-state solution. It is no secret that Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
52

T H E A L A Q S A mosque in the Old City in Jerusalem.
(RSS) are great admirers of the Zionist model, where
non-Jews have been reduced to the status of second-class
citizens. During his visit to Israel in July 2017, Modi
made it a point to go to Jerusalem. He did not visit
Ramallah, where the P.A. is headquartered. “Unlike the
worldwide opposition to this move, the official spokes-
man of the Ministry of External Affairs has scrupulously
refused to criticise the U.S. decision,” the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau said in a statement.
The U.S.’ traditional allies, including Britain, were
critical of the Trump administration’s decision. The U.S.
was completely isolated when the United Nations Secur-
ity Council discussed the issue on December 8. The U.N.
Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has reiterated that
there is no alternative to the two-state solution to end the
impasse in West Asia. He said the two states, Israel and
Palestine, had to “live side by side, in peace, security and
mutual recognition—with Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel and Palestine”.
The legal status of Jerusalem was defined in General
53
GETTY IMAGES
Assembly Resolution 181, which was adopted in 1949,
when Israel became independent. The resolution stated
that Jerusalem should be administered as a separate
entity. Israel had agreed to this definition at the time. It
was only after the occupation of East Jerusalem and the
West Bank after the 1967 war that the Israeli government
started laying claim to the whole of Jerusalem. In 1967,
Israel captured East Jerusalem and in 1980 unilaterally
declared Jerusalem as the country’s capital. The U.S.
government had desisted from formally recognising Jer-
usalem as Israel’s capital despite the U.S. Congress voting
overwhelmingly in favour of moving the U.S. embassy to
Jerusalem in 1995.
In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed a de-
cision that forbids those born in Jerusalem from claiming
that they are Israeli citizens. Only two countries, the
Czech Republic and Colombia, have recognised Jerus-
alem as Israel’s capital. The Israeli government has been
stressing that recognition of Jerusalem as its capital
means the recognition of the entire city as being under its
administration.
Innumerable U.N. Security Council resolutions,
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

YASIN AKGUL/AFP
A P R O - P A L ES T I NI A N protest in Istanbul on
December 8, 2017.
which the U.S. have not blocked, have termed the Israeli
occupation of Jerusalem as illegal. U.N. Resolution 242
of 1967 asked Israel to withdraw from all territories
occupied in the war that had taken place earlier that year.
Security Council Resolution 252 of 1968 specified that
Israel should rescind “actions that tend to change the
status of Jerusalem”, including the expropriation of land
and property. Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980
had warned Israel to stop construction activities on the
West Bank and Jerusalem. Such acts, the resolution
warned, amounted to a “flagrant violation” of the Geneva
Convention. Another U.N. resolution passed in the same
year censured Israel for enacting a law changing the
status of Jerusalem. The resolution stated that “it consti-
tuted a violation” of international law.
Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
has not only trampled on international opinion and law
but has helped entrench Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel
has promulgated apartheid laws and indulged in ethnic
cleansing in Jerusalem and the occupied territories. The
European Union (E.U.) foreign policy chief, Federica
Mogherini, said that the U.S.’ action “has the potential to
send us backwards to even darker times” and that “what
happens in Jerusalem concerns the entire region and the
entire world”. She suggested that the U.S. role in the
region would be considerably diminished now. Frederica
Mogherini reiterated to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ben-
jamin Netanyahu, who was visiting Brussels in the
second week of December that the E.U. remained com-
mitted to a “two-state settlement” to the Israel-Palestine
dispute “with Jerusalem as the capital of both”. The
French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was even
more forthright. He said that because of Trump’s move
on Jerusalem, the U.S. could no longer play the role of a
mediator in West Asia.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
The move on Jerusalem by the Trump administration
did not come as a surprise to Mahmoud Abbas, the P.A.
President. He, along with key Arab leaders, including the
rulers of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, were briefed by the U.S.
on the move to recognise Jerusalem.
Trump’s Jerusalem gambit may have had the tacit
approval of the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was briefed about
the announcement by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kush-
ner. The Kushner family are avid Zionists. Kushner’s
father, who is a real estate magnate, has contributed
funds for the building of settlements in the occupied
territories. Many of Trump’s financial backers during his
presidential campaign, like the casino mogul, Sheldon
Adelson, are supporters of the Zionist plan to colonise
Palestinian land.
The Saudis have struck up an alliance with Israel,
which is no longer under wraps. Washington, Tel Aviv
and Riyadh now consider Tehran as their main enemy.
Saudi Arabia had tried to convince the Palestinian lead-
ership to accept the U.S. decision on Jerusalem and sign
up a plan that would have given Palestinians a more
truncated state, without Jerusalem as the capital. The
Trump administration had threatened to close the
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) office in Wash-
ington, if the P.A. did not accept the “ultimate deal” to
solve the Israel-Palestine dispute cooked up by Kushner,
with the support of Saudi Arabia. As it is, the current P.A.
leadership’s role is that of policing the Palestinian people
on behalf of Israel and the U.S.
ISRAELI ATROCITIES
Palestinians in Jerusalem, unlike their compatriots in
Israel proper, have been reduced to the status of non-
citizens. Israel treats Palestinian residents as foreigners
who have been benevolently bestowed the right to reside
in their city and has issued “permanent residency” cards
to them. They live in constant fear of their residency
being revoked by the Israeli authorities. Since 1967, Is-
rael has revoked the citizenship rights of more than
14,000 Palestinians and built Jewish colonies in the
middle of densely populated Palestinian localities in East
Jerusalem. Around 200,000 Jews live in such areas
today under the protection of the Israeli security services.
According to the U.N., since 1967, 20, 000 Palestinian
homes have been destroyed by Israel in Jerusalem.
For all practical purposes, the two-state solution for
Palestine is now dead. Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator
for Palestinians, speaking after Trump’s announcement,
said that Palestinians should now focus on fighting for
their democratic rights in a “single state”. Albeit one that
describes itself as a Jewish state. Erekat accused Trump
and his advisers of being “more Israeli than Israel”. Han-
nan Ashrawi, another senior member of the PLO, said
that the U.S. had made peace talks between Israel and
Palestine “irrelevant and superficial” with its recognition
of Jerusalem. She stressed that the Trump administra-
tion had “totally ripped apart the legal foundation for
peace in the region”. $
54
 W O RL D A FF A I RS
UNITED STATES
Trump as Balfour
Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem seems more dangerous theatre
than anything else, another of his mischievous political acts. B Y V I J AY P R A S H A D
IN HEBRON ON DECEMBER 7, OVER 20 ISRAELI
soldiers arrested 14-year-old Fawzi Al-Junaidi, blind-
folded him and marched him off to detention. The image
of the arrest, the violence of it, startled many people.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned the
arrest and said sharply: “Israel is a terrorist state. We will
not abandon Jerusalem to the mercy of a child-murder
state.”
Erdogan was referring to the renewed controversy
over Jerusalem. On December 6, President Donald
Trump declared that the United States would move its
Diary from Trumpland
55
S E B A ST I A N S C H E I N E R / A P
P R E S I DE N T D O N A L D T R U MP and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu during their visit to the Israel Museum
in Jerusalem on May 23.
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To move the em-
bassy suggests that Israel’s capital is no longer to be Tel
Aviv but Jerusalem. This action is against long-standing
international policy, which sees Jerusalem as an “inter-
national city”—one that would be governed by various
parties to protect the city’s special status as home to
major religious sites of Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Trump’s statement on Jerusalem rattled Palestine,
where the people have long worried about the seizure of
East Jerusalem, which the United Nations deems to be
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
part of Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the rest of the Palestinians will respond to the Israeli violence, which
old city. Protests broke out in the West Bank, in Jerus- comes on top of the occupation that has lasted over 50
alem and in the Gaza Strip. These were largely non- years. Little wonder that some Palestinians chanted: “We
violent, a mirror of the frustration of the Palestinian don’t need empty words. We need stones and
people with the collapse of their national liberation Kalashnikovs.”
project. No wonder, too, that many world leaders—from Iraqi
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Qatari Foreign Min-
DANGEROUS ESCALATION ister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani—have
On December 8, which was a Friday and therefore a day called Trump’s statement a “dangerous escalation”. It
of prayer for Muslims, Israeli forces gathered in a show of will only create far more violence. The European Union
force near the Al Aqsa mosque, revered by Muslims as the and the U.N. have roundly condemned Trump’s
third holiest site in Islam. Prayers went on as usual in the statement.
mosque, although the tension on the streets was palp-
able. It provoked protests from Palestinians in the city, J E R U S A L E M A S E M B L E M
who marched in small groups chanting: “Jerusalem is In 1947, the U.N. passed Resolution 181 which placed
ours, Jerusalem is our capital.” Jerusalem under the administration of the U.N. It was to
Israeli forces descended upon the demonstrations be a city governed by a “special international regime”.
with ferocity. Israeli troops on horseback galloped down The countries of the world recognised Jerusalem as a
Salah Eddin Street in the old city, scaring passers-by. The special place, precious to the major Abrahamic religions
soldiers smashed up shops and arrested men, women and and located in the midst of tensions between the new
children. The Red Crescent said that about 800 state of Israel, exiled and occupied Palestinians and the
Palestinians had been injured and a handful, mostly in neighbouring Arab states.
Gaza, had been killed. Israeli forces used a combination Over the years, the U.N. Security Council has voted
of rubber bullets and live fire in the West Bank and seven times to condemn the Israeli 1980 Basic Jerusalem
Jerusalem and air strikes against Gaza. Two days later, Law, which claims the city as the “eternal and indivisible”
on December 10, an Israeli military vehicle ran over a capital of Israel. The first of these resolutions, 478 in
five-year-old Palestinian girl in the city of Hebron, per- 1980, was passed unanimously, with an abstention from
haps the tensest city in Palestine. the U.S. But even former (and late) U.S. Secretary of
It was in Hebron that 14-year-old Al-Junaidi was State Edmund Muskie suggested that Jerusalem was a
arrested and detained. His uncle said that the boy had unique city. “We must share a common vision of that
gone out to get medicine and food for his family. This ancient city’s future—an undivided Jerusalem, with free
young boy cares for his father, who had undergone sur- access to the holy places for peoples of all faiths.” At the
gery recently. The incident moved the uncle to say: “We same time, the U.S. held that it had the right to have its
are the children of Palestine. Jerusalem is the capital of embassy in Jerusalem. Any instruction from the U.N. to
Palestine in the hearts and minds of our children. They move its embassy, Muskie said in 1980, would not be
will never be able to erase it.” binding.
Wisam Hashlamoun, a Palestinian photojournalist, The tone in the Security Council in 1980 was strongly
took the iconic picture of Al-Junaidi. About 50 Israeli against an Israeli annexation of Jerusalem. Pakistan’s
soldiers attacked a group of Palestinian youths, Hash- then Ambassador to the U.N., Naiz A. Naik, said that as
lamoun recounts. Al-Junaidi fell to international pressure mounted
the ground, sustaining a head against Israel, it had “revived with
wound. The soldiers “pulled him to increased vigour the obsessive Zion-
his feet and encircled him”, which is ist scheme to Judaise the Holy City
the moment Hashlamoun photo- of Jerusalem by destroying its his-
graphed the boy. “It definitely didn’t torical personality and turning it
occur to me that this photo would into ‘the eternal capital of Israel’”.
become a symbol,” Hashlamoun Israel’s then Ambassador to the
A F P / AL ­ M A NA R T V / H A N D OU T

said. “I wanted to expose Israeli U.N., Yehuda Zvi Blum, responded

violence.”
Israeli state media concentrated
on a few rockets fired into Israel
from Gaza and the stabbing of an
Israeli security guard at the en-
trance of Jerusalem’s bus station.
These acts of violence were taken to
justify the massive use of force by
the Israelis against Palestinians—
spurred on by Trump’s inflammat-
ory declaration. It is inevitable that
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
S Y ED H A S S AN N A S R A L LA H , the
leader of Hizbollah. He said Trump’s
statement on Jerusalem was the
Second Balfour Declaration and called
for an intifada.
56
that Jerusalem had been the capital
of Israel from its origin and that Is-
rael would not honour any U.N. ap-
proach to the city. “Israel will not
allow Jerusalem to become another
Berlin,” Blum said, “with all that im-
plies not only for the welfare of its
citizens but also for international
peace and security.”
Israel, with U.S. backing, ig-
nored the U.N. It would, over the

course of these past 50 years, gradually annex pieces of
Jerusalem and weaken the Palestinian hold on the city.
Land grabs in East Jerusalem came alongside the en-
croachment of Jewish settlers into and the expansion of
the Jewish quarter in the old city. The attrition of
Palestinian space in the city included the operation to
destroy the Mamilla Cemetery, a site of immense import-
ance for Palestinian history (“Grave Silence”, Frontline,
February 21, 2014).
‘NO, MR TRUMP’
A week after Trump’s declaration, Prince Turki al-Faisal,
the former head of Saudi intelligence and former Saudi
Ambassador to the U.S., wrote a stinging open letter to
him. “No, Mr Trump,” he wrote, “Jerusalem is not Israel’s
capital.” His letter is a rebuke to Trump. “If you want to
rectify your misbegotten and cavalier act,” he wrote, “you
can issue a statement recognising the Palestinian state
and its capital in East Jerusalem. Otherwise, forget
whatever sweet words you blandish at us. Native inhabit-
ants of what is called America have coined the phrase,
‘White man speaks with forked tongue’. We have known
that phrase since 1917.” That this comes from the heart of
the Saudi establishment says a great deal about the ten-
sions in the region. Many suggest that Saudi Arabia is
preparing a public diplomatic opening to Israel, although
Trump’s action might have ended that possibility.
From Beirut, Lebanon, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, the
leader of Hizbollah, called Trump’s statement the Second
Balfour Declaration. The first Balfour Declaration was
57
L E F T E R I S P I T A R A K IS / A P
T U R K E Y ’ S P R E S ID E N T R E C E P TAY Y I P E R D O G A N
(centre) flanked by Jordan’s King Abdullah II (left) and
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with other leaders
and high-ranking officials of Muslim countries before the
opening session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s
Extraordinary Summit in Istanbul on December 13 to
discuss the U.S.’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
made by the then imperial power, Britain. It promised to
seize Palestinian land and give it to European Jewish
settlers; this would be an antidote to European anti-
Semitism. Trump’s declaration, by the current imperial
power, gives Israelis carte blanche to seize more
Palestinian land. In both cases, Nasrallah said, no one
spoke to the Palestinians. It is for this reason that Nasral-
lah called for an intifada—an uprising, the Third
Intifada.
Trump’s inflammatory decision came just before he
signed an extension that allowed the U.S. embassy to
remain in Tel Aviv. The U.S. embassy will not move to
Jerusalem for at least six months, when Trump will again
have to revisit the twice-annual ritual in the U.S. for the
President to sign this extension. It is unlikely that the
U.S. will actually move its embassy. This seems more
dangerous theatre than anything else. It is another of
Trump’s mischievous political acts; he pleases his base,
including conservative Christian evangelicals, and he
creates news.
Meanwhile, in Palestine, children like Al-Junaidi suf-
fer. It has been their lot for decades. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 W O RL D A FF A I R S
NEPAL

New direction
The Left alliance, forged just before the elections, makes spectacular gains in
the Parliament and Provincial Assembly elections, but the challenge before it
is to fulfil the voters’ aspirations for a corruption-free, vibrant and dynamic
Nepal. B Y S . D . M U N I

NEPAL’S RECENT ELECTIONS WERE HISTORIC. reach that number but would be very close to it.
The new Constitution adopted in September 2015 man- What has led to this spectacular victory of the Left
dated that a new Parliament and Provincial Assemblies alliance is its strong leadership, in the UML’s K.P.
must be in place by January 2018. When a coalition of the Sharma Oli and the Maoist Centre’s Pushpa Kamal Da-
Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal hal “Prachand”. Both these leaders are great communic-
(Maoist Centre) assumed power in August 2016, there ators and powerful mobilisers. They were backed by
was widespread scepticism if elections at the local, pro- strong grass-roots organisations and plenty of resources.
vincial and national levels would be held successfully to The alliance was forged from top down and there were
implement the new Constitution. Nepalese people and doubts whether the cadres would respect their leaders’
the leadership, including the Election Commission, de- wishes to support each other, forgetting years of mutual
serve compliments for completing the electoral process, conflict and rivalry. But the electoral outcome has set
which looked almost impossible 16 months earlier. Nepal aside these doubts.
is now well set on the path of stability and development, While forging the alliance, it was also declared that
in a broader sense, although some political and constitu- the two parties would be merged after the elections.
tional issues remain to be resolved. There are issues of ideology, leadership and, most of all,
power-sharing that remain to be resolved before the two
THE CONTEST formations are integrated into one communist party.
Elections were held on November 26 and December 7 for
national and provincial legislatures. Direct, first-past-
the-post elections were held for 165 seats in a 275-mem-
ber Parliament. The remaining 110 will be filled by pro-
portionate representation depending on the votes
secured by specific political parties. Similarly, 330 of the
550 seats in the seven Provincial Assemblies were put to
direct vote and 220 will be filled through proportionate
representation. The main contest was between the Left
alliance of the Maoist Centre and the Communist Party of
Nepal (United Marxist Leninist-UML), forged just be-
fore the elections, and the reactive Democratic alliance of
the Nepali Congress, the Madhes and other parties that
remained unformalised. At the time of going to press, the
Left alliance had secured 115 seats. The Left alliance was
also way ahead of the Nepali Congress in proportionate
votes for which counting was still in progress. In the
Provincial Assemblies, the Left alliance had bagged 239
seats. Left alliance leaders had claimed that the alliance
would secure a two-thirds majority. They might not

S U P PO R T ER S of the Communist Party of Nepal

(United Marxist Leninist) take part in a victory rally in
Kathmandu on December 12.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 58
Prachand has declared that gion of Terai, merging with
the process of party unity the Nepali Congress on the
will be pursued simultan- eve of the elections.
eously with the formation of Sher Bahadur Deuba,
the new government. The the president of the Nepali
validity of such political Congress, proved to be a
statements made in the en- weak leader. He failed to
thusiasm of electoral victor- unite internal party factions,

N A V E S H C H I T R A K A R / RE U T E R S
ies, however, will be tested which adversely affected the
with time. There has also electoral fate of some prom-
been widespread specula- inent party leaders such as
tion in the Nepali media that vice president Ramchandra
the Left alliance was facilit- Poudyal, Ramsharan Mahet,

REUTERS
ated by strong Chinese sup-
port as China is resolutely
anchored into expanding its
economic and strategic pres- K . P . O L I , Communist
ence in Nepal. Party of Nepal (UML)
The massive victory of leader.
the Left alliance also owes it
to the weak contest put up bythe Nepali Congress and the
Madhes parties. As noted earlier, the move for forging a
Democratic alliance under the leadership of the Nepali
Congress came only as an afterthought, in reaction to the
Left alliance, and it remained a work in progress as the
alliance could not be firmed up. In fact, Nepali Congress
leader Bimlendra Nidhi, who was tasked with forging the
alliance, ended up alienating some Madhes leaders, so
much so that he lost to Rajendra Mahto, the leader of the
Madhes coalition called the Rastriya Janata Party. Some
other alienated Madhes leaders, such as Hridayesh Tri-
pathi, felt forced to contest, and even won, on the UML
ticket. The Madhes parties were also internally fractured.
They went to the polls in two different formations, with
yet another, led by Bijay Gachchadhar of the Tharu re-
Shelhar Koirala and K.P.
Sitaula, and even his wife
Arju Deuba. He is not an ef-
P U S H PA K A M A L fective communicator and
D A H A L “Prachand”, his ideological credentials
Maoist Centre leader. on democracy are not viewed
as consistent and firm. He
was also blamed for promoting nepotism and favouring
corrupt, criminal and business interests while distribut-
ing the ticket.
The Left alliance was also not free from such blemish,
but its damage was controlled organisationally. The
Nepali Congress’ main campaign slogan was to scare
people from voting for the Left alliance as that would
destroy democracy and bring in a totalitarian system.
This did not cut much ice with the voters. It would have
been better for the Nepali Congress to contest elections
on its achievements such as leading Nepal’s democratic
struggle through decades, mainstreaming the Maoist in-
surgency, giving Nepal its first Republican Constitution,
improving its economic performance and holding elec-
tions in record time against heavy odds. There was also
very little in the Nepali Congress campaign promising
development and progress.

THE CHALLENGE
The Left alliance, therefore, swept the polls, except in
Province No.2, which is a Madhes stronghold. It will have
its government in all the six other provinces as well as at
the Centre. It would, however, be misleading to read the
massive victory for the communist parties as a victory for
communism in Nepal. In voting for the Left alliance,
Nepali voters have sent some clear messages. The first is
that they have voted for Nepal’s rising new nationalism,
which has two distinct components. One, that it is confid-
ent and assertive and two, that it is development aspira-
tional. Fuelled by Nepal’s young population, this
nationalism wants stability and progress, which has
eluded Nepal for the past many decades, especially for
the past 10 years when the aspiration for change and
P R A K AS H M A T H E M A / A F P

progress was unleashed by the Jan Andolan (People’s

Movement) of 2003-06, preceded by a 10-year Maoist
insurgency of violence and mayhem. This nationalism is
also driven by hill-upper castes and wants to see Nepal
united and strong, suspecting that Madhes’ rise in
Nepal’s political structure may threaten it internally as

59 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

well as externally. It has a strong anti-India undercur-
rent, triggered by India’s senseless policy of economic
coercion for five months following the adoption of
Nepal’s new Constitution in September 2015. It inflicted
a strong sense of hurt and humiliation on ordinary
Nepalis.
Then Prime Minister Oli and his UML cleverly mo-
bilised this sense to consolidate its hold over the wide-
spread national sentiment. He then also moved to
explore the possibility of diversifying Nepal’s dependence
upon India by harnessing cooperation with China. This
strategy of internal political consolidation has its roots in
the old monarchical order, but it projected Oli as a leader
who could be bold and resourceful in standing up to
India. The UML victory in the current elections is solid
evidence of his political sagacity and dynamism.
The second message given by the Nepali voters is of a
complete rejection of the incompetent and dubious lead-
ership represented by the Nepali Congress under Deuba.
This has resulted in the demand both from within and
outside the party for an urgent and immediate change in
leadership. A young and victorious party leader Gagan
Thapa has publicly demanded Deuba’s political retire-
ment. Even before the elections, Nepali Congress secret-
ary general Shashank Koirala had hinted that Deuba
would not be acceptable as a prime ministerial candidate.
Nepalese democracy would need a strong opposition and
it remains to be seen as to how the shrunken Nepali
Congress and its relatively new and young leadership will
emerge to undertake this challenge along with the Mad-
hes parties.
The third strong message from the Nepali people
comes in the form of a snub to the forces of regression
that were trying to revive the religious dominance of
Hinduism against a secular Nepal and also revive the
monarchy in the name of the failure of republican and
transformational political forces. These forces of regres-
sion, represented by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, have
been administered a humiliating defeat. Against such
forces, the voters even empathised with the new and
aspiring but so far unsuccessful political alternatives—
represented by the Naya Shakti Party led by former
Maoist leader and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai
and the Bibeksheel Sajha Party led by Ravindra Mishra—
that promise a corruption-free, vibrant and dynamic
Nepal.
All those who have stakes in Nepal’s stability and
development must understand and imbibe these mes-
sages. The Left alliance, in particular, must take cognis-
ance of the first message that calls for sincere
commitment to development and capacity for good gov-
ernance on its part. The alliance leadership has made
public statements to that effect, but it may turn out to be
easier said than done. The massive electoral victory may
easily drive the alliance leadership towards arrogance
and complacency. Neither Oli nor Prachand established
himself as a provider of good governance in his past
tenure as Prime Minister. They have played political
games and managed power dynamics remarkably. Theirs
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
has been a politics of carefully distributing patronage to
control governing, even constitutional, institutions and
aggregate the components of powers and authority, often
at the cost of public good and social justice. This politics
of patronage, both at personal and party levels, may have
to be given up if the new government led by them has to
deliver on the expectations of the voters and average
Nepalis.
FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES
No less difficult it will be for the new Left alliance govern-
ment to deal with Nepal’s key foreign policy challenge of
engagement with its two giant neighbours, India and
China. Both of them preferred to warm up with China to
demonstrate their sense of national independence vis-à-
vis pressures from India. China is Nepal’s next-door
neighbour and it must take initiatives to benefit from
China’s phenomenal progress and prosperity. More so
because China is coming forward assertively with attract-
ive infrastructure projects under its Belt and Road Initi-
ative to lure Nepal and establish its economic stakes and
possibly its strategic presence there. Nepal is a key com-
ponent in China’s broader South Asian strategy in this
respect. What the Left alliance needs to be careful about
in its engagement with China is to ensure that economic
engagement and its immediate gains do not lead to long-
term dependency. Nepal may carefully take clues from
the experiences of other South Asian neighbours such as
Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives and even Pakistan. Its
geopolitical imperatives of being sandwiched between
China and India also compel Nepal to steer clear of any
such economic engagement with China that may im-
pinge adversely on India’s security sensitivities and vice
versa.
On India’s part, it is high time it understood that
business as usual will not do any longer in its Nepal
policy. A careful understanding of the new electoral mes-
sages from Nepal is an absolute must for Indian policy-
makers. To a considerable extent, it was India’s distorted
priorities and impulsive operational style that fed into
Nepal’s new nationalism and drove the Left leaders
closer to each other and to China. Indian leaders must
rely more on their resilience and accommodation than
muscular and one-sided diplomacy in approaching
Nepal. India has had smooth and easy relations with the
governments of both the UML and the Maoists-led gov-
ernments in Kathmandu. That experience has to be rein-
vented. The interested constituencies of and around the
National Democratic Alliance government in New Delhi
must also understand that post-election Nepal has no
room for the revival of a Hindu state under a constitu-
tional monarchy. One hopes that both Kathmandu and
New Delhi will grasp the gist of the Nepali voters’ mes-
sages correctly in creating conditions for creative and
cooperative bilateral relations. $
S.D. Muni, former Special Envoy and Ambassador,
Government of India, is Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal
Nehru University, and Distinguished Fellow, Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses.
60
 W O RL D A FF A I RS
WEST ASIA

Cracks in the council

The failed GCC summit points to a stalemate in West Asia that might last for
a while, adversely affecting the economies of its members, and only a change
in Saudi policy can reunite the squabbling kingdoms. B Y K . P . F A B I A N

THE ABORTED GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL
(GCC) summit in Kuwait scheduled for December 5-6
raises the question whether this regional integration pro-
ject, until recently one of the more successful of such
projects, has collapsed or not. When the GCC was formed
in 1981, the main motivation was to address the perceived
threat from Iran by raising the level of synergy among the
member-states who had much in common. Even without
hindsight it can be said that the threat from Iran was
exaggerated.
It is paradoxical that Qatar, one of the founding
members, has been compelled to embrace Iran owing to
Saudi Arabia’s actions. In short, Saudi Arabia, while
seeking confrontation with Iran in order to weaken its
bete noire, has only strengthened it.
Let us look at what happened in Kuwait. The Emir of
Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah, 88, was working hard to reconcile
Saudi Arabia and Qatar even before the blockade against
Qatar was announced by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt on June 5, 2017.
That the summit was doomed was known for weeks.
Bahrain had publicly declared that it would not sit with
Qatar and called for suspending its membership. The
UAE had signalled that it agreed with Bahrain. Bahrain,

REUTERS

K U W A I T E M I R Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (right) welcomes Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani upon
his arrival to attend the annual GCC summit in Kuwait City on December 5.
61 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

H A M A D I M O H A M M ED / R E U TE R S
K A R I M J A A F A R / AF P
U . S . S E C R E T AR Y O F S A U D I Crown Prince
S T A TE Rex Tillerson. Mohammed bin Salman.
which is heavily dependent on Saudi Arabia for its sur-
vival, would not have come out with such a demand
without endorsement from Saudi Arabia.
Contrary to the expectations of Qatar’s foes, Kuwait
invited Qatar’s Emir to the summit. In retaliation, Saudi
Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain sent Ministers to the sum-
mit. The Emir of Kuwait, showing exceptional patience
and tact, received the Saudi Foreign Minister at the
airport. But the three nations were determined to sabot-
age the summit. Even before it opened, the UAE formally
announced that it had reached agreement with Saudi
Arabia on tightening their links, militarily, politically,
economically and otherwise—a clear signal that they
were not interested in negotiated settlement with Qatar.
The two-day “summit” ended on day one after meeting
for 15 minutes.
However, the GCC Secretary General read out to the
media excerpts from the “Kuwait Declaration” adopted at
the “summit”. The full text does not seem to have been
published even by the GCC secretariat. The “Declaration”
pointed out that “yesterday’s events confirm the correct
view of GCC leaders in establishing this Gulf edifice in
May 1981, which stipulated that its supreme objective is
to achieve coordination, complementarity and interde-
pendence among its members in all fields to reach unity
and deepen and strengthen ties in all fields”.
The “Declaration” stressed that the GCC has taken
“important steps since its establishment 36 years ago
towards achieving this goal”. Obviously, there is an at-
tempt to mislead the public about what happened.
Contrary to the general impression, the current crisis
in the GCC did not begin on June 5, 2017. The discord
between Saudi Arabia and Qatar goes back many years.
An unpublished border agreement signed in 1965 did not
prevent a clash in 1992. A final border agreement was
signed in 2001.
Saudi Arabia resents Qatar’s “independent” foreign
policy and insists that Qatar should align itself with its
big neighbour. It was primarily to protect itself from its
neighbour that Qatar welcomed with alacrity the station-
ing of U.S. troops at Al Udeid, built by it at a cost of $1
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
billion in 1996. In 1999, the Emir of Qatar specifically
requested the U.S. to station at least 10,000 troops there.
Currently, the number exceeds 11,000.
The UAE resents Qatar’s support to the Muslim
Brotherhood organisation. The UAE supported finan-
cially and otherwise the plot hatched by the military-led
Deep State in Egypt to bring down Mohamed Morsi, the
first democratically elected President in Egypt’s history.
Qatar and the UAE have supported opposing camps
in Libya. The UAE takes seriously unsubstantiated me-
dia reports that Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-
Qaradawi, living in Qatar, has been plotting against it.
Qaradawi, 91, who has been sentenced to death by a court
in Egypt, is unlikely to be working for a coup in the UAE.
Bahrain and Qatar have a history of discord and
rivalry. Their territorial disputes over Hawar Islands and
other territories go back to 1936. The disputes were
resolved when both parties accepted the verdict of the
International Court of Justice in 2001. But tension and
ill-feeling continue.
The only non-GCC member to participate in the
blockade of Qatar is Egypt. The government of President
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi resents the support that Qatar exten-
ded to Morsi and to the Muslim Brotherhood after Morsi
was removed in a military coup in July 2013 when el-Sisi
took over.
One significant actor from outside the Arab world is
U.S. President Donald Trump. In March 2017, Trump
hosted a lunch at the White House for Prince Mo-
hammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s then Defence Min-
ister. The prince and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, got on like a house on fire and an alliance was
struck between the White House and the House of Saud.
In May, Trump went to Saudi Arabia, his first visit
abroad as President. He was received with much fanfare
and pomp by King Salman. It is believed that Trump was
asked for, and had given his, endorsement to the pro-
posed action against Qatar.
Trump left Saudi Arabia on May 22. Two days later,
Qatari News Agency was hacked into and for a while it
carried reports of the Emir calling Iran “an Islamic
power” and claiming that Qatar had “good relations with
62

S A U D I F O R EI G N M I N I S TE R Adel al-Jubeir (centre) at the GCC summit in Kuwait City on December 5.
Israel” during a speech at a military academy. The hacked
story was widely covered in the media in Saudi Arabia
and the UAE. Qatar has accused the UAE of having
arranged and paid for the hacking operation.
While announcing the measures against Qatar, Saudi
Arabia claimed that it was compelled to act because of
“grave violations being committed by the authorities in
Doha over the past years in secret and public aiming at
dividing internal Saudi ranks, instigating against the
State, infringing on its sovereignty, adopting various ter-
rorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilising the
region including the Muslim Brotherhood Group, Daesh
(ISIS) and Al Qaeda, promoting the ethics and plans of
these groups through its media permanently….” Obvi-
ously, any argument that puts Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the
Muslim Brotherhood in the category of promoters of
terrorism is unconvincing.
The U.S. has pursued an incoherent policy in the
matter. Trump tweeted in support of Saudi Arabia; his
Secretaries of State and Defence pointed out to him that
Qatar hosted the biggest U.S. air base in the region and
that it was not in the U.S.’ interests to drive Qatar into
Iran’s arms. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to
mediate between Qatar and Saudi Arabia but stood no
chance with Trump’s open support to Saudi Arabia.
But the U.S. has now concluded that Prince Mo-
hammed bin Salman is overplaying his hand. On Decem-
ber 8, Tillerson said in Paris: “With respect to Saudi
Arabia’s engagement with Qatar, how they’re handling
the Yemen war that they’re engaged in, the Lebanon
situation, we would encourage them to be a bit more
measured and a bit more thoughtful in those actions to, I
63
Y A S S ER A L ­ ZA Y Y A T /A F P
think, fully consider the consequences.”
Qatar has behaved with exemplary resilience and
judgment and avoided retaliation. Qatar is still supplying
gas to the UAE and has not sent out any of the roughly
300,000 Egyptians working there. Egypt worked over-
time to prevent Qatar’s candidate from getting elected to
the top post in UNESCO. Qatar, worried over a military
move by Saudi Arabia, did take the precaution of asking
Turkey to strengthen its military base in Qatar. Saudi
Arabia did try to encourage a regime change by support-
ing a Qatari prince, but it was an inconsequential move.
India has scrupulously avoided saying anything to
annoy either side, for understandable reasons. If hostilit-
ies break out, India will face the daunting problem of
repatriating 8 million of its nationals, not to mention its
dependence on the region for energy imports. The evacu-
ation of 176,000 people from the region in 1990-91 was a
formidable task accomplished competently. It is a pity
that India lacks the diplomatic clout to mediate dis-
creetly in the region, mainly because it has not cultivated
personally the rulers and other influential persons.
As of now there is no sign of any reconciliation. The
U.S. could have imposed a settlement if it had acted in
good time. There is a stalemate that might last for a while,
adversely affecting the economies of the member-states.
Oman was supposed to host the next summit. It has
declined and said Saudi Arabia will be the host. The GCC
can be reunited only if there is a change of policy on the
part of Saudi Arabia, with or without a regime change
there. $
K.P. Fabian, former Ambassador to Qatar, is writing a book
on the GCC.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 WOR LD AFFA IR S
YEMEN
Saleh’s
last sigh
The Houthi militia kills the former
Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh
after he showed willingness to hold
talks with Saudi Arabia, whose
military campaign against Yemen
has claimed thousands of lives.
B Y J O H N C H E RI A N
THE VIOLENT DEATH OF THE FORMER PRES-
ident Ali Abdullah Saleh, 75, in the first week of Decem-
ber closes an interesting and turbulent chapter in the
history of Yemen. Saleh was killed as he was fleeing from
the capital, Sana’a, after falling out with his erstwhile
Houthi allies. A few days before his death, he had criti-
cised the Houthis and held out an olive branch to the
Saudi-led coalition, which has been relentlessly bombing
the country for the past three years. Houthi rebels, who
control the capital and most of northern Yemen, were
aware of the machinations of Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) to split the resistance
forces.
Saleh’s actions in the past few months raised suspi-
cions among his allies, who were bravely facing the
Saudi-led onslaught on their country. Saleh described
the Houthis as a mere militia force. His eldest son,
Ahmed, who was under house arrest in Abu Dhabi, made
statements in favour of the Saudi-led coalition. Ahmed
headed the country’s elite Republican Guards when
Saleh was in power and was appointed the country’s
Ambassador to the UAE during his father’s last days as
President. Saleh groomed him as his successor. His Gulf
patrons have now started projecting him as their point
man in Yemen.
The contours of the agreement between Saleh and
Saudi Arabia soon became clear. He was assured that he
would once again be given a pre-eminent role in the
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
K H A L E D A B D UL L A H / RE U T E R S
A L I A B D U L L A H S A LE H .
affairs of Yemen. On December 2, Saleh publicly stated
that he was willing to open talks with Saudi Arabia even
as there was a blockade against the country and essential
supplies and medicines had been stopped. The Houthi
leadership said that Saleh’s actions amounted to treason
and “a coup against our alliance and partnership... and
exposed the deception of those who claim to stand up
against aggression”. Saleh met his end on December 4
when he and his close aides came under a fusillade of
bullets when they reportedly attempted to escape from
the capital in a bullet-proof vehicle.
Saleh reluctantly gave up power in 2011 following
massive street demonstrations in the wake of the Arab
Spring that shook Sana’a and other cities. Despite the use
of brutal force, Saleh could not suppress street protests.
The Houthis in the northern territory had already raised
the banner of revolt. A separatist movement was gaining
momentum in the southern region. Large tracts of territ-
ory came under the sway of Al Qaeda and other Salafist
forces. The Daesh (Islamic State) also entered cities such
as Aden. An assassination attempt was made on Saleh in
2011. The mosque in his presidential compound was
bombed heavily as he and some of his close aides were
64

S U P PO R T ER S O F H O U TH I rebels attend a rally in Sana’a on December 5.
attending Friday prayers. A few months later, Saleh de-
mitted office under pressure from his Gulf allies.
Saleh was succeeded by his Vice President, the inef-
fectual Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Saudi government
had a big role in his elevation. Unlike other Arab leaders
who were deposed, Saleh preferred to stay on in Yemen
and nurse his grudges. As the country slid deeper into
civil war, Saleh, to the surprise of many observers, struck
up an improbable alliance with the Houthis. During his
33-year-long rule, Saleh had waged wars against the
Houthis on more than four occasions. Hussein al Houthi,
the father of the current leader of the Houthis, Abdul
Mallik al Houthi, was killed in 2004 reportedly on the
orders of Saleh. The Houthis were part of the mainly
peaceful revolution that overthrew Saleh in 2011.
HOUTHI ANGER
The Houthis, a branch of the Zayedi sect of Shias, consti-
tute more than 40 per cent of the country’s population.
They were the dominant sect in North Yemen for centur-
ies. Saleh himself was born a Houthi but the party he
formed, known as the General People’s Congress (GPC),
had antagonistic relations with the Houthis for long
65
HANI MOHAMMED/AP
periods of time. The Houthis were angry with the grow-
ing Salafist influence in the country. They were also upset
with Yemen’s close ties with the United States and its
growing dependence on Saudi Arabia. Saleh had become
close to Washington after the second Gulf War of 2003,
when he joined the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq. In the
first Gulf War, Saleh was among the few Arab leaders
who refused to join the U.S.-led military coalition against
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. That action proved costly for the
country. The U.S. imposed tough sanctions on Yemen
and Saudi Arabia expelled more than a million Yemenis
who were working in the kingdom.
The alliance between Saleh and the Houthi move-
ment, which was forged in 2014, was essentially an ar-
rangement to foil the game plan of the Saudi-led alliance
to impose their writ on the country. Saleh was unhappy
that the Saudis were favouring the Islah Party, the tradi-
tional rivals of the GPC. Despite his removal from the
presidency, Saleh continued to hold political, military
and financial clout. During his long years in power, Saleh
had siphoned off billions of dollars from the country’s
treasury and oil funds. But unlike many other Arab po-
tentates, he is not known to have saved his fortune in
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

H A N I M O H A M M ED / A P
T H E R E P U B L I CA N P A L A CE , destroyed by Saudi-led
air strikes in Sana’a on December 6.
secret Swiss bank accounts or spent it on buying villas in
Europe. He used the illicit funds at his disposal to buy off
potential enemies and keep influential tribal leaders on
his side.
Saleh could have chosen a retired life outside Yemen
after his resignation but he chose to make another bid to
stay politically relevant. Saleh ran an effective patronage
system. Most of the army units swore their allegiance to
him even after he lost the presidency. The elite army
officers were either from his tribe or were indebted to
him in many ways. After his death, the political scenario
has changed dramatically. The Houthis are now in total
control of Sana’a. Saudi Arabia had hoped to broker a
separate peace deal with Saleh and then effect a face-
saving withdrawal from the conflict they ignited. Now,
Saudi Arabia and its allies, if they want to end the war,
will have to initiate a serious dialogue with the Houthis.
SEPARATION AGAIN?
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, never managed
to have a lasting respite from violence. In fact, it was only
after the appearance of Saleh at the helm of affairs of
North Yemen in 1978, that there was a semblance of
stability for a short period of time. Saleh had come to
power on the back of a military coup. The country at the
time was divided into two, with South Yemen coming
under Communist rule after the British left the southern
part of the country in 1967. North and South Yemen had
gone to war in 1972 and 1979 with unification as the
ultimate goal.
Saleh had an important role to play in the country’s
unification in 1990. Communists in the South had be-
come a fragmented lot because of bitter infighting. The
collapse of the Soviet Union contributed to the demise of
leftist rule in the South. The South agreed to unite with
the more populous North on the basis of the promise of
decentralisation of power and democracy. Saleh reneged
on his commitments, leaving the southerners disen-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
chanted and alienated. The South made an aborted at-
tempt to secede in 1994, only to be overwhelmed by the
superior military force of Saleh’s army and volunteers of
the Islah Party, an ally of Saudi Arabia. The Islah is an
affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islah fighters had
helped the Yemeni army in their previous wars against
the Houthis.
Today, the South has virtually seceded. Aden, the
major port city of the South, is being run by a new breed
of separatists, who are mainly supported by the UAE. The
UAE, which is bankrolling the separatists, has a loathing
for the Houthis and the Islah as well. With the exit of
Saleh from the political scene and the dominance of the
Houthis in the North, Yemen could once again be head-
ing for partition. The military situation in the country is
now in a stalemate.
HOUTHIS’ FIGHTING PROWESS
Despite raining “smart bombs” and banned munitions
such as “cluster bombs” haphazardly all over the country
and arming tribal militias and jehadi elements, the
Saudi-led alliance has been unable to dislodge the
Houthis from Sana’a or from the large swathe of territory
they control in the north of the country. A significant
section of the Gulf Cooperation Council members and
tribes that were with Saleh have now pledged allegiance
to the Houthis. Saudi Arabia continues to maintain that
the Houthis are a proxy for Iran. However, even the U.S.
has acknowledged that Iran does not exercise “command
and control” over the rebels. The Houthis’ fighting
prowess has improved since the Saudi military interven-
tion. A missile fired by the rebels landed near Riyadh
airport and could not be intercepted by the U.S.-supplied
AWACS (Airborne Early Warning and Control) system.
There seems to have been some serious international
pressure on Saudi Arabia to end its inhumane campaign.
Even U.S. President Donald Trump, who is plying the
coalition with “beautiful weapons”, has urged Saudi Ara-
bia to end the blockade on Yemen. Trump told the media
that Saudi Arabia was directed to “completely allow food,
fuel, water and medicine to reach the Yemeni people who
desperately need it. This must be done for humanitarian
reasons immediately,” Trump said. The Saudi-led milit-
ary campaign has been targeting schools, hospitals, mar-
kets and mosques in Yemen.
For instance, it had declared the entire city of Saada,
which has a population of more than 50,000, as a milit-
ary target. At least 10,000 people have died so far in the
Saudi-led war, including hundreds of civilians in Sana’a.
The country is devastated by widespread malnutrition
and the spread of diseases such as cholera. The electricity
grid and water supply systems have been destroyed. The
United Nations has been trying to broker peace talks, but
Saudi Arabia continues to insist that a ceasefire is pos-
sible only after the Houthis withdraw from the capital
and other areas they have occupied and lay down their
arms. U.N. resolutions have made demands on the
Houthis, but Saudi Arabia and its proxies have been
given a free run. $
66
 AR CH IT ECT URE

The making of
NEW DELHI
I N D IA G AT E . It was originally designed as a war memorial dedicated to the Indian soldiers killed during the First World
War and other wars such as the Afghan War. The nearby canopy used to serve as a memorial to George V.

67 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

 The style of architecture chosen for New Delhi, which was
formally inaugurated as the colonial government’s new capital in
February 1931, was meant to manifest Britain’s imperial position
in India and was more than just a means to provide housing and
office space for bureaucrats.
Text & photographs by SHASHANK SHEKHAR SINHA
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 68
T H E V I C E R O Y ’S H O U S E (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) with the famous Jaipur Column in the front.
THE imperial capital of New
Delhi forms one of the most endur-
ing architectural legacies of colonial
rule in the Indian subcontinent. It
had come under British control by
1803 and more firmly so after the
suppression of the 1857 rebellion.
However, the decision to make it
the new capital was only taken in
1911. The process of setting up the
new imperial city was not a simple
architectural or urban planning ex-
ercise; it emerged out of intense de-
bates relating to the changing
strategic interests of the British Em-
pire in India. It also involved intense
discussions regarding the site of the
new capital, choice of architects,
69
style of architecture, layout of the
city, acquisition of land and design of
individual buildings—all of which
played an important part in the mak-
ing of New Delhi. The whole process
was further complicated by the out-
break of the First World War, time
and cost overruns, and differences
between the two leading architects,
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.
Why was a decision taken to shift
the capital from Calcutta to Delhi?
Nationalist opposition to colonial
rule was building up in Calcutta,
which had been the seat of the British
administration for around 150 years.
Further, Lord Curzon’s partition of
Bengal—the creation of a new
province of Eastern Bengal and As-
sam with the “Muslim city” Dacca
(Dhaka, now capital of Bangladesh)
as the capital—had caused a huge
uproar, leading to a boycott of for-
eign goods, the development of a
movement for swadeshi enterprises
and, later, bombings and political as-
sassinations. Calcutta was becoming
a less hospitable home for the Brit-
ish. There were at least two primary
ideas at the heart of the discussions
surrounding the transfer of the cap-
ital. The first was to reunify Bengal
and in some way assuage the hurt
nationalist sentiments. Connected to
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
this was the second idea of giving
Bengal the same status and
autonomy as the Madras and Bom-
bay presidencies. It was argued that
“the Supreme Government should
not be associated with any particular
Provincial Government” and that in
the long run the provinces should
have a larger measure of self-govern-
ment.
The author Jag Parvesh Chander
points out that Sir J. Jenkins (Home
Member of the government)
provided a “masterstroke of inven-
tion” by proposing an idea that in-
volved revoking the partition of
Bengal, redrawing its provincial
boundaries and transferring the im-
perial capital to Delhi. However, the
plan was kept a top secret until the
Coronation Durbar of 1911, held in
Delhi, where King-Emperor George
V announced the transfer of the seat
of government from Calcutta to the
ancient capital of Delhi and the cre-
70
ation of a new governorship for
Bengal. Lord Curzon and, interest-
ingly, many Europeans were angry
with the “unhappy desecrators of
Calcutta”. The newspaper The Eng-
lishman even warned that those go-
ing to Delhi would suffer from “the
swamps and heat, the boils and
blains, the snakes and insects” and
much more.
WHY DELHI?
Why was Delhi chosen? It was an
ancient city associated with Hindu
mythology and sacred legends. It had
a more central location and was
closer to the summer capital, Shimla.
Some even argued it had a better
climate. More importantly, Delhi
had been a seat of power under the
Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals,
and the government wanted to build
on this symbolic association too. The
historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee
says that Calcutta lacked the
T H E D O M E O F T H E V I C E R OY ’ S H O US E flanked by the twin secretariat buildings (North and South blocks). In the
foreground are Vijay Chowk (Victory Square) and the avenue that is now the site of the “Beating the Retreat” ceremony.
grandeur of Delhi. Further, the 1857
rebellion had shown the symbolic
importance of Delhi and the emo-
tional connect people had with it and
the Mughal emperor. Interestingly,
during the Coronation Durbar,
George V and Queen Mary even ap-
peared before the Delhi public from a
jharokha (overhanging enclosed bal-
cony) at the Red Fort—trying to ap-
propriate an imperial symbolism
and a practice only reserved for em-
perors—to reiterate their supremacy
over the subcontinent.
IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY AND
ARCHITECTURE
The Delhi Town Planning commit-
tee was formed, and Lutyens (who
had designed a garden city and coun-
try homes in England) was appoin-
ted as the consultant to draw up a
master plan. Viceroy Lord Hardinge
himself was involved in the planning
of the new capital in a major way.
The historian Percival Spear says
the architectural committee of Luty-
ens (an architect), John A. Brodie (an
engineer) and S.C. Swinton (a muni-
cipal issues expert who also had
knowledge of Indian architecture)
chose a site on Raisina Hill, south of
Shahjahanabad, reversing an earlier
decision to build the capital on a site
north of the Mughal capital. They
saw the new site as an Indian Acro-
polis, with the proposed Viceroy’s
House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) as
the Parthenon. The architect and
heritage expert Lucy Peck says that
the Viceroy’s insistence that the cap-
ital should be completed in four
years made Lutyens rope in Baker, a
friend and architect who had de-
71
signed colonial buildings in South
Africa. Baker could only join in 1913,
by which time most of the decisions
had been taken. It was agreed that
Lutyens would design the Viceroy’s
House and the overall layout of the
city, whereas Baker would take care
of the twin secretariat buildings
(now North and South blocks).
The historian Thomas R. Met-
calfe argues that New Delhi was not
simply meant to provide housing and
office space for bureaucrats and was
charged with symbolic meaning
from the very outset. There were
many opinions on the proposed ar-
chitectural style. George Bernard
Shaw and Thomas Hardy advocated
an Indian style executed by an Indian
architect. The debate eventually nar-
rowed down to the three principal
actors: Hardinge, Lutyens and
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Baker. All three were agreed on the
need for an architectural style that
would manifest Britain’s imperial
position in India.
The debate was about what such
imperial architecture ought to con-
sist of. Broadly speaking, Lutyens
and Baker preferred European clas-
sicism (modelled on or deriving in-
spiration from ancient Greece or
Rome), whereas Hardinge preferred
at least a part of the “Eastern”, or
more specifically the Indo-Sara-
cenic, style associated with Delhi and
its neighbourhood. With Hardinge’s
mediation, Lutyens and Baker even-
tually settled for a Western-style
classical architecture with details be-
ing filled up with Indian motifs. This,
however, happened after much de-
bate and deliberation and even a
scuffle, which soured relations
between the two architects and
friends.
Lutyens was known for his un-
compromising adherence to
European classicism. Metcalfe says,
to him, the line of descent of archi-
tecture was straight and clear: it
emerged from the Greeks, who
passed it on to the Romans from
where it went to the Italians, who in
turn handed it over to the French and
to Christopher Wren (the famous
British architect who was fond of the
Graeco-Roman style and designed
English churches, including St.
Paul’s Cathedral). Lutyens did not
have any great respect for Indian ar-
chitecture, which he regarded as
mere “spurts by various mushroom
dynasties with as much intellect as
there is in any art nouveau”. Baker,
like Lutyens, was not fond of Indian
architecture.
However, as Metcalfe says, for
him the design was not going to be
either Indian or Roman or English
but purely imperial; it should be able
to capture in stone the spirit of the
British Indian Empire. “The new
capital must be the sculptural monu-
ment of the good government and
unity which India, for the first time
in history, has enjoyed under British
rule.” To him, as Metcalfe clarifies,
Indian architecture was not politic-
ally expressive. It did not have the
“constructive and geometric quality
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
necessary to embody the idea of law
and order which had been produced
out of chaos by the British Adminis-
tration”. European classicism, there-
fore, had to be given pride of place in
New Delhi as it had been in Pretoria,
South Africa.
Lutyens and Baker found suffi-
cient common ground to create a
harmonious set of buildings on Rais-
ina Hill. However, they fell out on the
location of the secretariat buildings
in relation to the Viceroy’s House.
Rejecting the original plan of locat-
ing them a little below the Viceroy’s
House, Baker insisted they be moved
up onto the acropolis; it should form
“one high platform expressing the
importance of the unity of the viceroy
with his government”. This meant
pushing the Viceroy’s House further
back away from the edge of Raisina
Hill, which Lutyens reluctantly
agreed to. The gradient leading up to
the hill had to be gentle so that there
was a harmonious and balanced ef-
fect to the altered architectural
scheme.
However, Baker, who oversaw
the construction of the slope, allowed
for too steep a gradient. This created
an architectural anomaly that still
haunts New Delhi. As one moves
from India Gate towards Raisina
Hill, the Viceroy’s House disappears
after a point of time, leaving only its
dome visible. When Lutyens dis-
covered this, he tried his best to rem-
edy it but failed. He called it his
“Bakerloo”.
Leaving this and some other is-
sues aside, British officials were
massively preoccupied with the mak- and the creation of riverside parks
ing of the new capital over the next and drives, never materialised.
two decades. During this period,
most of them who had migrated from LAYOUT
Calcutta lived in cramped temporary The art historian Vidya Dehejia says
quarters in the Civil Lines, an area features such as monumental classi-
that had been the site of British set- cism, vast ceremonial avenues, open
tlements after the capture of Delhi in spaces, geometrical symmetry and a
1803. The construction work was in- grand central axis characterised New
terrupted by the outbreak of the First Delhi’s outlay plan.
World War (1914-1919), and the bulk The heart of the new imperial city
of the work, therefore, took place in was the Viceroy’s House located on
the 1920s and 1930s. The new city the top of Raisina Hill and flanked by
was formally inaugurated in Febru- the twin secretariat buildings. The
ary 1931. Some schemes and aspira- viceregal estate and the crescent
tions, however, such as bringing the (which is an architectural arrange-
Yamuna back to its original place ment of buildings along an arc or
72
H Y D ER A B A D H O U S E . Designed by Edwin Lutyens for the last Nizam of Hyderabad, it is now used by the Government of
India as the venue to meet foreign dignitaries.

curved street) behind the Viceroy’s
House, Willingdon Crescent (now
known as Mother Teresa Crescent),
contained residential accommoda-
tion for important functionaries.
The main streets were supposed
to have beautiful vistas at their ends.
King’s Way (now Rajpath, or “Av-
enue of the State”) was the principal
imperial axis and was supposed to
connect Purana Qila (or Old Fort,
associated with the Afghan ruler
Sher Shah Suri and the Mughal em-
peror Humayun) to the Viceroy’s
House via the war memorial arch
(India Gate) and Victory Square (Vi-
jay Chowk). Queen’s Way (now Jan-
path, or “Avenue of the People”’)
crossed the principal axis at right
angles, connecting the central com-
mercial hub Connaught Place and a
host of important buildings with
South End Road (now known as
Rajesh Pilot Marg). Further beyond
Connaught Place in the north was
the Jami Masjid, the grand congreg-
ational mosque of the 17th century
Mughal capital, Shahjahanabad.
Vidya Dehejia points out that
streets in residential areas were
structured around roundabouts
which were mini gardens that func-
tioned as traffic circles. Rules of offi-
cial hierarchy were followed, and
residences were allotted on the basis
of official status. A lot of thought also
went into the greening of the new
capital. The municipal forest officer
P.H. Clutterbuck’s list of Indian trees
became the basis for planting of trees
along the avenues. W.R. Mustoe,
Director of Horticulture and an ex-

73 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

pert from Kew Gardens, selected
trees that were sturdy, shade-giving
and long-lived. The historian Philip
Davies points out that each of the
major avenues had a distinct botan-
ical identity such as tamarinds on
Akbar Road, neems on Aurangzeb
(now A.P.J. Abdul Kalam) Road and
Arjun trees on Queen’s Way. Mustoe,
along with the architect Walter
Sykes George, landscaped a Mughal-
style garden inside Government
House at the insistence of Hardinge.
BUILDINGS ON KING’S WAY
Important buildings on King’s Way
included the Viceroy’s House, the
twin secretariat buildings and the
Council Chamber (now Parliament
House). The Viceroy’s House was
originally designed as a monumental
Government House. However, as
Lucy Peck clarifies, the changes fol-
lowing the colonial government’s
Montague-Chelmsford Reforms
(1919), which expanded the adminis-
tration’s representative machinery,
meant that a separate structure was
required for the legislature. The
Viceroy’s House was, therefore, re-
duced to serving as the residence and
office of the Viceroy and was also
used for formal state functions.
Built mostly between 1921-29,
the Viceroy’s House is an intensely
horizontal two-storeyed building
and, at the time of completion,
formed one of the largest residential
buildings in the world, larger than
the Palace of Versailles in France.
The upper main floor is made of
cream-coloured sandstone and
marked by long colonnades linking
solid battered-wall pavilions. The
ground floor is a monumental plat-
form in red sandstone interrupted by
arched openings and square win-
dows. Brought from western Uttar
Pradesh, red and cream sandstone
were a standard feature in earlier
Mughal buildings. They protected
structures from scorching sum-
mers—the “violence” of the Indian
sun as Lutyens would say—and tor-
rential rains.
The central feature of the build-
ing is the massive central copper
dome (50 metres, or 164 feet, above
the ground) which rises on a cream
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
sandstone drum enclosed by a railing
like the one at the Sanchi stupa.
There are chattris, or kiosks, on
either side of the drum while water
flows through a series of circular
stone basins, sometimes in a stepped
formation. Water channels, pools
and fountains (including on the roof)
like those in Mughal monuments
and a three-levelled garden adorn
the building. In front of the building
is the famous Jaipur Column—the
Maharaja of Jaipur parted with the
bulk of the land—built on the pattern
of famous pillars in Europe but with
some Indian symbols like a bronze
lotus crowned by a glass six-sided O N E OF T H E FO U R
Star of India. “ C O L U MN S O F T H E
The Viceroy’s House has 340 D O M I N IO N O F T H E
rooms, the most famous of which are E M PI R E ” , in front of
the Throne Room (which lies right South Block. Each
below the central dome and is now column is surmounted
known as Durbar Hall) where invest- by a bronze ship
itures and durbars took place; the signifying the maritime
Ballroom (now called Ashoka Hall) strength of the
specially noted for the ceiling con- British Empire.
taining an equestrian portrait of
Fateh Ali Shah, the second of the
seven Qajar rulers of Persia, hunting
with 22 of his sons; and the Banquet-
ing Hall (now called the State Dining
Room), which once had pictures of
Governor Generals and Viceroys.
The twin secretariat buildings
were constructed between 1914 and
1927. Like the Viceroy’s House, they
are built in cream and red sand-
stone—the red forming the base
while the cream is used for principal
floors. European-style features in-
clude columns and domes, particu-
larly the Renaissance-like dome at
the centre of each building. Indian
architectural elements include the
use of red sandstone, jalis (perfor-
ated screens), chajjas (eaves/shade-
giving cornices) and decorative ele-
ments such as chhatris (canopies
that appear on the roofline), carved
brackets and elephant heads on pil-
lar capitals. Arches used in the con-
struction are circular as opposed to
the pointed Indian arches. Metcalfe
says that besides picking up architec-
tural elements from both the East
and the West, Baker was also con-
cerned about climate and decora-
tion. Features like spacious
colonnades, open verendahs, chaj-
74
jas, jalis and small high window
openings increased the circulation of
air, reduced the amount of sunlight
within buildings and brought the
outdoors close at hand. These fea-
tures, except for the colonnades, gave
the building an Indic appearance.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
The square area in front of the
twin buildings has the four Columns
of the Dominion of the Empire
presented by the Commonwealth
countries Canada, South Africa, New
Zealand and Australia. Each red
sandstone column is surmounted by
76
an Asokan-style pillar capital con-
taining a chakra, a bull, a lion and an
inverted lotus. The columns are
topped by bronze ships signifying the
maritime might of the British Em-
pire. It was assumed that India
would become a dominion as well.
 T H E W E S T ER N C O U R T ,
one of the buildings on
Queen’s Way (Janpath).
There are currently plans to
replace the transit hostel for
legislators at the western
court with a residential guest
house for Members of
Parliament.

The Council Chamber is located
slightly away from the main imperial
axis and was planned later. It was
originally supposed to be located
within the Viceroy’s House, but the
Montague-Chelmsford reforms cre-
ated the need for a new building.
Baker was entrusted with its design,
and it was to house three chambers:
the Council of State (now the Rajya
Sabha), the Legislative Assembly
(now the Lok Sabha) and the Cham-
ber of Princes. A proclamation of
George V in 1919 established the last
chamber as a forum for the rulers of
the princely states of India to voice
their concerns and aspirations. It
survived until the end of the British
Raj.
The Council Chamber is de-
signed like a coliseum with lobbies

77 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

 T H E C O U N C I L C H A M B E R (now Parliament
House). Designed by Herbert Baker, it was
originally built to house three chambers: the
Council of State (now the Rajya Sabha), the
Legislative Assembly (now the Lok Sabha) and
the Chamber of Princes.

FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 78

79 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
T H E T E E N M U R T I C O M P L E X. Designed by Robert Tor Russell, it was
originally called Flagstaff House and was the residence of the British Army’s
Commander-in-Chief and, later, of Jawaharlal Nehru.
connecting three semicircular cham-
bers to a central chamber—where
Jawaharlal Nehru made his “Tryst
with Destiny” freedom at midnight
speech—with a suppressed small
dome. The whole structure is sur-
rounded by a painted and plastered
colonnaded verandah. Later, a floor
was added to the building. The struc-
ture is bound by a stone railing re-
miniscent of the Sanchi stupa. The
stone posts outside the building look
like the Mughal lamps in Agra.
The site between Victory Square
and India Gate is like an imperial
avenue or a ceremonial boulevard
and is dotted on both sides by huge
lawns, pools and rows of trees. Con-
taining six big fountains, the
boulevard is now the site of the Re-
public Day Parade. Victory Square is
like a spacious plaza containing six
big fountains. This is where the
“Beating the Retreat” ceremony is
held every year to conclude the Re-
public Day celebrations.
India Gate, completed in 1921,
was designed by Lutyens as a
hexagonal space with an arch-
shaped war memorial—which the
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
heritage expert Swapna Liddle says
looks similar to European memorial
arches, notably the Arc de Triomphe
in Paris—at the centre and roads ra-
diating out of it. It was dedicated to
the Indian soldiers killed during the
First World War and other wars such
as the Afghan War. The India Gate
complex contains a canopy that was
originally designed as a memorial to
George V, who died in 1936. It car-
ried a statue of the monarch until
1968 after which the statue was shif-
ted to Coronation Park. There was
some talk in the past about putting
Mahatma Gandhi’s statue under this
canopy. However, this was eventu-
ally ruled out. The area around the
war memorial was called Princes
Park, and important ruling families
were allotted land to build houses
along the sides of the hexagon. The A P O R T IO N O F T HE
notable ones among them include I N N E R C I R C L E of
Hyderabad House, Baroda House Connaught Place, which
(which has the offices of the Indian Robert Tor Russell
Railways), Patiala House (now a dis- designed as a commercial
trict court complex), Jaipur House hub. The historical
(now the National Gallery of Modern Wengers bakery can also
Art) and Bikaner House. be seen in the picture.
King’s Way was supposed to end
80
near Purana Qila in a lake where the
silhouette of the monument would
appear. However, Lady Willingdon
(wife of the then Viceroy) insisted on
creating the National Stadium
between the fort and the memorial
arch. Work on the structure started
in 1931 under the supervision of
Robert Tor Russell, who was con-
sulting architect to the Government
of India after 1919 and the chief ar-
chitect of the Public Works Depart-
ment (PWD). The main entrance to
the stadium is dominated by five
large arches, and the structure is
topped by five dwarfed chattris in-
stalled at the suggestion of Lady
Willingdon—much against the
81
wishes of Lutyens. The historian
Laura Sykes says Lutyens never for-
gave her for redecorating the Vice-
roy’s House in shades of her
signature mauve; he called her “a
mauvais sujet”.
BUILDINGS ON QUEEN’S WAY
Queen’s Way and most of the build-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
T H E G O L E M A R K E T . It was one of the oldest markets in Delhi. It now awaits redevelopment as a heritage museum after
a court ruling in 2013 ordered the shopkeepers still on the premises to vacate.
ings located on it were designed by
Russell. At one end of the street lay
the commercial hub called Con-
naught Place—named after George
V’s uncle, the Duke of Connaught,
who visited Delhi in 1921. Said to be
modelled on the Royal Crescent in
Bath in England, it was planned as a
two-storeyed open colonnaded
structure with shops on the ground
floor and houses on the first. This
area forms part of the Delhi ridge
and was earlier dominated by keekar
trees and overrun with jackals and
wild pigs. When Connaught Place
was finally completed around 1935, it
looked like two concentric circles of
buildings interspersed with three
roads, the Inner, Middle and Outer
Circles.
The complex had an array of
shops and establishments catering to
affluent and powerful British and In-
dians. Wengers—named after the
Swiss couple Wenger—for example,
designed in 1926, became the first
bakery and confectionary shop to in-
troduce French bread, Swiss chocol-
ates and margarine pastries to the
imperial city. In its early days, it also
served as a popular venue for expatri-
ate weddings, ballroom dances and
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
official dinners. Besides shopping
and dining, Connaught Place
provided entertainment facilities
such as cinema theatres, including
Regal (designed by Walter Sykes
George and inaugurated in 1932)
and Plaza (designed by Russell and
inaugurated in 1933, it has a classical
facade of columns). Other theatres,
including Odeon, Rivoli and the In-
dia Talkie House, came into being
around 1938.
The Imperial Hotel was designed
as a luxury hotel in the 1930s and it
eclipsed the hotels in the earlier Brit-
ish hotspot, the Civil Lines. It was
built by F.B. Blomfield, one of Luty-
en’s associates, and inaugurated by
Lord Willingdon in 1936. Silver tea
service, tableware from London,
Italian marble floors, Burma teak
furniture, original paintings by
Thomas and William Daniell and
James Fraser on the walls, a vision of
undulating green lawns and
turbaned waiters in red—all helped
create the aura of an early 19th cen-
tury English manor in the heart of
imperial Delhi. Close to the Imperial
Hotel are the eastern and western
courts, designed as hostels for legis-
lators. There are currently plans to
82
replace the transit hostel at the west-
ern court with a residential guest
house for Members of Parliament.
Further down Queen’s Way were
a museum housing a collection of
paintings by Sir Aurel Stein (now the
National Museum) and the Records
Room (now the National Archives),
which was originally established as
the Imperial Record Department in
1891 in Calcutta. It was shifted to
Delhi and located at the intersection
of King’s Way and Queen’s Way in
1926. The street ended at South End
Road, which together with Lodhi
Gardens formed the southern
boundary of Lutyens’ Delhi.
WILLINGDON CRESCENT &
GOLE DAK KHANA
Willingdon Crescent continues to
form the western boundary of the
presidential estate and runs between
Teen Murti Bhavan and Ram Mano-
har Lohia Hospital (previously Will-
ingdon Hospital). The Teen Murti
complex was designed by Russell and
was originally called Flagstaff
House. It was the residence of the
Commander-in-Chief of the British
Army, and, later, of the first Prime
Minister of independent India,
Jawaharlal Nehru. Later, after the
three statues memorial was installed
at the traffic roundabout in front of
the complex, the building was re-
named Teen Murti Bhavan. The
British sculptor Leonard Jennings
built this memorial to commemorate
the Jodhpur, Hyderabad and Mysore
lancers who had fought gallantly in
Syria, Palestine and Sinai during the
First World War.
At the other end of Willingdon
Crescent is another busy traffic
roundabout, which houses the Gole
Dak Khana (literally, round post of-
fice) in the centre and Sacred Heart
Cathedral New Delhi on one of its
sides. Nearby are located the Gole
Market (round market) and Willing-
don Hospital. The Gole Dak Khana
was designed by Russell and built in
the 1930s. Originally known as Alex-
andra Place, it was the seat of the
PWD and reportedly also served as
the Viceroy’s camp post office in the
1930s. It was upgraded to a general
post office in the 1960s. The church
near the roundabout was one of the
first Roman Catholic churches in
Delhi and its construction was su-
pervised by Father Luke, who
worked closely with Lutyens.
The earlier churches in the city,
including St. James near Kashmere,
or Kashmiri, Gate, St. Stephen’s in
Shahjahanabad and the Cathedral
Church of the Redemption near the
Viceroy’s House, were Anglican. The
British architect Henry Medd (Rus-
sell’s successor) designed the church
building, which is based on Italian
architecture. There were other civic
facilities near this roundabout. Will-
ingdon Hospital was started in 1932
for government staff with 54 beds.
The Gole Market was designed
by G. Bloomfield as a 12-sided struc-
ture built around an open circular
courtyard, punctuated with six semi-
circular arched gateways leading
into the market, and had wrought
iron lamp posts and benches.
Lutyens designed the staff quar-
ters on the viceregal estate and the
National Archives. Baker designed a
few bungalows, and a particularly
warm one on Akbar Road became
known as “Baker’s Oven”. However,
the PWD with Russell in the lead
designed most of the other bunga-
lows and official housing. Lucy Peck
says that the houses south of the im-
perial axis looked grand, while those
in the north-west near the Gole Dak
Khana were humble clerks’ houses
with front verandahs, several rooms
and a backyard.
Whatever the size of the house,
Lucy Peck points out, the basic pat-
tern remained the same: the main
road gave access to the front of the
house and there was a service lane at
the back. Feroz Shah Road had, she
further says, a rare type of housing: a
modest version of “palace facades” of
18th century urban England. Here,
narrow houses were built to look as if
they were part of a “grander seeming”
scheme or a single magnificent edi-
fice. There was shared accommoda-
tion for single men at the P.T.
Chummery Quarter complex near
Hailey Lane, and there were modest
houses for the posts and telegraph
staff near Kasturba Gandhi Marg.
Travancore House at the Kasturba
Gandhi roundabout, originally built
as a princely house, had a butterfly
design, that is, a colonnaded struc-
ture with two wings.
The imperial capital also had a
provision for new churches. Arthur
Shoosmith (1888-1974) designed St.
Martin’s Garrison Church, and
Henry Medd designed the Cathedral
Church of the Redemption and Sac-
red Heart Cathedral New Delhi.
Three and a half million bricks went
into the construction of the Garrison
Church (completed in 1930), which,
soldiers claimed, looked like a fort-
ress—with buttresses, parapets,
straight lines and few windows—and
would have been easy to defend in an
emergency. The inside resembles a
basilica with its high circular dome
and curved arches reaching up to the
vaulted roof. The Cathedral Church
of the Redemption stands north of
the Jaipur Column and west of Par-
liament House at North Avenue. On
February 23, 1927, Viceroy Irwin laid
the foundation stone at the spot that
would be the central dome, the exact
centre of the church. Opened to pub-
lic worship on Sunday January 18,
1931, it is built in white dholpur
stone sandwiched between a roof
83
and a plinth of red sandstone.
Smooth and polished ashlar ma-
sonry was reserved for the moulded
courses and the elegant columned
porches.
THE EMPIRE AND ITS
SHORT-LIVED CAPITAL
Metcalfe says that the British also
chose an imperial style because that
was the medium through which
Europeans apprehended empire. Its
“eternal principles” and “ordered
beauty” were fit to embody in stone
the spirit of the empire more than
any other style of architecture. Fur-
ther, by connecting their monu-
ments to the ideals and empires of a
cherished classical antiquity, the
British sought to enhance the moral
worth, at least in their own eyes, of
their political handiwork. Metcalfe
points out that such an architectural
style was not tied to any specific geo-
graphical setting, and its elements
could be reproduced in any tropical
dependency. He also argues that
what had been worked out in Pre-
toria and refined in Delhi could be
carried to such places as Kenya,
where Government House (now
State House), Nairobi, built by Baker
in 1925, was but a minor variant of
the design experimented with be-
fore.
At the laying of the original
foundation stone of Delhi, Viceroy
Hardinge said: “Many capitals have
been inaugurated in the neighbour-
hood of Delhi… and assuredly none
ever held promise of great perman-
ence or of a more prosperous and
glorious future.” Ironically though,
only 16 years after the city was inaug-
urated, Lord Mountbatten handed
over the reins of sovereignty to an
independent India. As Philip Davies
says, it is a curious fact of history that
empires in decline often undergo a
resurgence of cultural vigour before
their demise, and the British Empire,
like those of Spain, Rome or Austria-
Hungary, was no exception. $
Shashank Shekhar Sinha has taught
history in undergraduate colleges at
the University of Delhi. He does
independent research on tribes,
gender, violence, culture and heritage.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 BO OK S in review
The Zionist project
The book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of
India-Israel relations and Gandhi’s opposition to a nation based on
religion. BY K . P . F A B I A N
P ROFESSOR P.R. Ku-
maraswamy of Jawa-
harlal Nehru University
(JNU), New Delhi, is an
eminent scholar who has
studied for years with sin-
gular passion and diligence
Israel and its relations with
its neighbours. The title of
the book is rather puzzling,
but the author gave an ex-
planation for this when the
book was released recently
at JNU: He starts writing
at 3:30 a.m. when ideas
and words, floating in the
supersensible Platonic
world, come to him on
their own.
The central theme of
the book is Gandhi’s views
on the Zionist project to
have a nation exclusively
for Jews in Palestine. The
author’s thesis is that
Gandhi should have exten-
ded support to the Zionist
project. Gandhi was wrong
in advising Zionists to re-
sort to non-violence as he
failed to condemn the viol-
ence from Palestinians. He
is scandalised that Gandhi
should have advised the
Jews in Nazi Germany to
use non-violence as a
weapon against the Nazi
state. He raises the ques-
tion: How can Gandhi’s at-
titude to the Zionist
project, held consistently
over decades, be squared
with India’s decision in
1992 to establish diplo-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
matic relations and to get
closer and closer with Is-
rael since then?
Kumaraswamy reveals
that Pyarelal, Gandhi’s sec-
retary, who edited the Col-
lected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi, decided deliber-
ately to exclude certain
speeches, letters and even
meetings of Gandhi if they
had anything to do with
Zionists. Pyarelal con-
fessed to Ved Mehta in the
1970s that the intention
was to “suppress them
from history”, a rather un-
Gandhian act indeed as the
author correctly points out.
The author gives us a
detailed account of
Gandhi’s friendship with
Jews, starting from his
days in South Africa. When
Gandhi founded the Tol-
stoy Farm in Transvaal,
84
Squaring the Circle
Mahatma Gandhi and
the Jewish National
Home
By P.R.
Kumaraswamy
Indian Council of
World Affairs,
Knowledge
Publishers Pvt. Ltd,
New Delhi
Pages: 234
Price: Rs.920
South Africa, in 1910, he
was helped in a big way by
Hermann Kallenbach and
Henry Solomon Leon Po-
lak. They tried hard to en-
tice “Gandhi toward
Zionism”, but to no avail.
Gandhi’s “incomplete, ste-
reotypical and even
simplistic understanding
of the Jewish faith proved
harmful when the Jewish
faith homeland project was
unfolding in the early 20th
century” (emphasis added).
ZIONIST PROJECT
We are given a detailed ac-
count of the efforts on the
part of Zionist leaders to
convince Gandhi of the
justness of their cause. The
first contact was in London
in 1931 when Gandhi was
attending the Second
Round Table Conference.
The last contact was in
April 1947 at the time of
the First Asian Relations
Conference in New Delhi.
A 10-member delegation
led by Professor Hugo
Bergman (of Hebrew Uni-
versity, Jerusalem), met
Gandhi during the
conference.
The author believes
that it was Gandhi’s article
in the November 26, 1938,
issue of Harijan that de-
termined independent In-
dia’s policy towards Israel.
The text of the article is
given. The author finds
fault with Gandhi’s asser-
tion that Palestine belongs
to Arabs in the same sense
that England belongs to the
English or France to the
French. Gandhi argued
that the mandates have no
sanction but that of the last
war. “The nobler course,”
Gandhi averred, “would be
to insist on a just treatment
of the Jews wherever they
are born and bred.”
In the final chapter, the
author sums up his thesis.
“Mahatma Gandhi’s great-
ness lay not in his right-
eousness or nobility but in
his willingness to recognise
his human frailties, accept
them unreservedly, and
work toward improving
himself through various
forms of self-correcting
mechanisms and atone-
ment. There was a singular

M A H A T M A G A N D H I and Hermann Kallenbach (middle row, centre) at the Tolstoy Farm, South Africa, in 1910. The author
gives a detailed account of Zionist leaders’ efforts to convince Gandhi of the justness of their cause.
failure on this account as
far as the Zionist project is
concerned.”
THE BIG PICTURE
Let us evaluate the au-
thor’s thesis. To under-
stand Gandhi’s and India’s
approach to the Zionist
project of evicting
Palestinians from the land
where they have been liv-
ing since the seventh cen-
tury and establishing a
state exclusively for Jews,
we need to look at the big
picture. The book and its
thesis have to be seen
along with this big picture.
It is a pity that many books
on Zionism by pro-Zion-
ists fail to take note of the
big picture. What were the
forces that brought Israel
into being? Above all,
there was the tenacity of
purpose of Zionists; the
horrendous Holocaust cer-
tainly helped in convincing
the West of the need and
justification for a state ex-
clusively for Jews; and last,
but not the least, the effect-
ive use of violence amount-
ing to terrorism.
Irgun, responsible for
the bombing of the King
David Hotel (July 22,
1946), was termed as a ter-
rorist organisation by the
United Nations, the
United States and the
United Kingdom. How-
ever, that did not prevent
Menachem Begin, Irgun’s
chief from 1943 to 1948,
from becoming Israel’s
Prime Minister in 1977.
What is even more re-
markable is that he shared
85
the Nobel Prize for Peace
with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat
in 1978 after the two
signed a peace treaty. Be-
gin is not the only Israeli
Prime Minister with a ter-
rorist past.
MEANS AND END
Gandhi believed that right
means had to be employed
for right ends. He did not
believe that the end justi-
fied the means. Zionists
believed that the end justi-
fied the means. For them
the establishment of a
Jewish state in Palestine,
“promised” to them by Je-
hovah, is such a supreme
good that any means, in-
cluding terrorism, could be
used to realise it. Gandhi
held that any end brought
about by bad means could
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
A F P / HA N D O U T
not be good. Obviously,
there was no question of
Gandhi endorsing the
Zionist project.
Gandhi believed that
religion and politics could
not be held in watertight
compartments. His views
on religion did influence
his politics and he was far
from apologetic about it.
Man has many parts, eco-
nomic, political, religious,
aesthetic, and so on. One
cannot deny the unity of
the person by saying that
religion and politics
should not be mixed. But,
Gandhi was firm in the be-
lief that a new state could
not be founded on the
basis of religion. If he had
supported the Zionist
cause, he would have had
to support the partition of

D A V ID B E N - GU R I O N proclaiming Israel’s independence beneath a portrait of
Theodor Herzl.
India on the basis of reli-
gion. Equally, Gandhi op-
posed the project for a
Hindu Rashtra.
The reader will recall
that the Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS) leaders, including
V.D. Savarkar, who
wanted to have a Hindu
Rashtra did support the
Zionist project. In his fam-
ous book Hindutva
(1923), Savarkar emphas-
ised his support for the
Zionist cause: “If the Zion-
ists’ dreams were realised,
if Palestine became a Jew-
ish state, it would gladden
us almost as much as our
Jewish friends” (emphasis
added).
While Gandhi did in-
fluence India’s approach to
the new state of Israel that
came into being in May
1948, it was Jawaharlal
Nehru who took the de-
cisions. He made it clear
that India had to take into
account the interests not
only of Jews but also of Ar-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
abs. While Nehru’s de-
cision to avoid diplomatic
relations with Israel was
right when it was taken,
that decision should have
been reviewed from time
to time. Nehru’s decision
was reversed by Prime
Minister P.V. Narasimha
Rao in 1992. By then Israel
had emerged as an import-
ant supplier of military
technology and weapons
to India. There was a feel-
ing that the Arabs had
taken India for granted
and that at the Organisa-
tion of Islamic Coopera-
tion and elsewhere, they
could have lent more sup-
port to India on the Kash-
mir issue. There was also
the calculation that the
U.S., the sole superpower,
would be pleased with In-
dia’s decision.
The author’s argument
about Gandhi’s lack of
knowledge about Judaism
as a reason for his unwill-
ingness to endorse the
Zionist project does not
86
hold water. The author
faults Gandhi for prefer-
ring the New Testament,
especially the Sermon on
the Mount, to the Old Test-
ament. It is only natural
that Gandhi was not fas-
cinated by the tribal god
Jehovah who took care
only of his “chosen people”.
The author ridicules
Gandhi’s advice that Jews
should claim their right to
live as normal citizens in
the land in which they
were born. As a matter of
fact, according to the au-
thoritative Virtual Jewish
Library, of the 14,704,500
Jews in the world, only
6,336,400 (44 per cent)
are in Israel. Was Gandhi
wrong?
Coming to Gandhi’s
advice to Jews in Hitler’s
Germany, the author has
argued that such advice
did not make any sense.
Many readers might agree
with the author. But, it is
necessary to bear in mind
that Gandhi never ap-
proved of cowardice. He
made a crucial distinction
between the non-violence
of the strong and that of
the weak. The non-viol-
ence of the weak is cow-
ardice and Gandhi
condemned it unequivoc-
ally.
He said: “Where choice
is set between cowardice
and violence, I would ad-
vise violence... I prefer to
use arms in defense of hon-
our rather than remain the
vile witness of dishon-
our....” As a matter of fact,
there was some resistance,
at times violent and at
times non-violent, on the
part of Jews as pointed out
by the Virtual Jewish Lib-
rary. We do not know
whether these Jews were
influenced by Gandhi or
not. It is difficult to appre-
ciate the author’s criticism
of Gandhi for addressing
Hitler as “Dear Friend” in a
letter written in December
1940.
Kumaraswamy has
made a significant contri-
bution to our understand-
ing of India-Israel
relations and Gandhi’s ap-
proach to the Zionist pro-
ject. His book will be of
interest not only to schol-
ars but also to the general
public. Kumaraswamy’s
style of writing is a study in
lucidity and his Teutonic
thoroughness compels our
admiration. The book is
thought-provoking and
topical, considering the
fact that there are renewed
attempts to transform In-
dia into a Hindu Rashtra.
Young Indian readers will
come to realise that the
Father of the Nation op-
posed a state based on reli-
gion, be it in Palestine or in
India. $
Ambassador K.P. Fabian
is author of Diplomacy:
Indian Style.
 BO OK S in review
A rare harvest
The two volumes give the non-Malayalee readers
and the diaspora a solid, tangible proof of the
existence of a proud culture and heritage.
BY A . J . T H O M A S
T HE Oxford University
Press (India), under
the editorial initiative of
Mini Krishnan, the daunt-
less pioneer of publishing
Indian literature in Eng-
lish translation in an or-
ganised manner, has come
out with two iconic antho-
logies of modern Malay-
alam literature over the
last six years—The Oxford
India Anthology of Malay-
alam Dalit Writing (2011),
and The Oxford India An-
thology of Modern Malay-
alam Literature (2017).
During the same period,
two other books, The Ox-
ford India Anthology of
Tamil Dalit Writing
(2012) and The Oxford In-
dia Anthology of Telugu
Dalit Writing (2016), have
been published under her
watch. In fact, these books
effectively place the literat-
ures concerned in the orbit
of the international lingua
franca, and two of them re-
late to Malayalam literat-
ure.
Mini Krishnan’s vis-
ionary contribution in this
area has to be lauded at the
outset. At a time when the
English language acquires
unprecedented import-
ance as the prime link in
the cyberworld, and in-
creasingly as the language
of humanities, social sci-
ences, and particularly that
The Oxford India Anthology of Modern
Malayalam Literature
Volume 1: Poetry, Drama and Prose
Volume 2: Fiction
Edited by P.P. Raveendran
and G.S. Jayasree
Oxford University Press (India), 2017
Pages 516+432,
Price: Rs.1,750 (for the set)
of comparative literature,
and world literature in
translation, the publica-
tion of these two antholo-
gies most certainly gives
modern Malayalam liter-
ature a tremendous boost.
(Most of us would not have
heard of Gabriel Garcia
Marquez and scores of
other literary giants had
they not been available to
us in English translation.)
87
In the Preface to The
Oxford India Anthology of
Modern Malayalam Liter-
ature, its editors, P.P.
Raveendran and G.S. Jay-
asree, state: “This book is
the result of a deeply felt
need for a comprehensive
anthology of modern
Malayalam literature
which would be useful alike
to researchers, literary
treasure hunters, and vo-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
taries of the language who
can only read its literature
in translation.” It is a fair
enough thesis statement,
spelling out the intent of
the book in a nutshell. At
the very beginning of his
scholarly, well-researched
“General Introduction”,
Raveendran, however,
gives a more specific indic-
ation of the scope and pur-
pose of the work: “This
anthology constitutes a
comprehensive and rep-
resentative selection of the
seminal works of literary
and imaginative writing
composed in Malayalam
over the past hundred and
twenty years. The selection
in two volumes is expected
to permit the reader to
gauge the range and depth
of creative expression in
the genres of poetry,
drama, fiction, and non-
fictional prose….” Compre-
hensive is the key word in
both the opening sen-
tences. But the elaborate
processes of selection/re-
jection/revision/canonisa-
tion of assorted literary
texts in Malayalam created
over more than a century
(spanning the late 19th and
the early 21st centuries) are
barely contained even in
the loose garb of this ad-
jective. The strategies ad-
opted by the editors in the
selection/rejection of au-
thors/texts/translators
would certainly keep liter-
ary enthusiasts interested
for some time to come.
EVOLUTION OF
MALAYALAM
The first volume comprises
samples of poetry, drama
and prose, and the second
volume is set apart entirely
for fiction (announcing its
primacy among other
genres), which includes Modern drama, which
the novel and the short is actually seen as less
story. The General Intro- flourishing than poetry
duction starts off by nar- and fiction in Malayalam,
rating the story of the has only a few stars, and
evolution of the Malay- the most important among
alam language as a separ- them, except perhaps Nar-
ate entity more than a endra Prasad (the reason
thousand years ago, “from for the exclusion is ex-
a branch of the proto- plained below) and P.
Dravidian language and Balachandran, have been
developed into an inde- represented, beginning

H. VIBHU
pendent tongue through a with the veteran V.T. Bhat-
healthy interaction with tathirippad (1896-1982) to
N . K U M A R A N A S A N and Balachandran Chullikkad.
other languages, more par- K.V. Sreeja (b. 1966), a wo-
ticularly Sanskrit”, at- man dramatist, a rarity
tempting to avoid, through poets who established speak volumes of a bias, and a welcome addition.
a footnote, the tangle of themselves by the early shared by most of the “es- One wishes that the farces
unresolved arguments 1990s consider their in- tablished” school critics, of a pioneer like C.V. Ra-
over the issue in the schol- spiration, along with Aat- and some commentators man Pillai (represented in
arly world over the last two toor Ravivarma, is not that there has not been a the fiction section, and
centuries, to date. This in- even mentioned in the in- “single, strong poetic voice hence excluded here) and
troduction places Malay- troduction. since Balachandran Chul- the dramas and satires of
alam as the youngest of the Towards the end of the likkad”. The whole point of E.V. Krishna Pillai had
four south Indian lan- General Introduction, discussing the poetry of been included to demon-
guages—the other three Raveendran says: “Some of the past three decades is strate the natural course of
being Tamil, Kannada and the authors omitted would lost when such an argu- growth in this genre.
Telugu—which have been be found discussed or ment is advanced. The so- The prose section has
awarded the status of Clas- mentioned in the intro- cio-political, economic been introduced by Jayas-
sical Languages by the ductions, though obvi- and cultural changes that ree. Beginning with C.
Central government, and ously this will be small have set in since the mid Kesavan (1891-1969) and
affirms its place as one of comfort to admirers of spe- 1980s to the present, the ending with J. Devika (b.
the country’s oldest cific writers, whom we world over and in India, 1968), this section offers
bhashas. The poetry and could not, for practical particularly Kerala, are what is more of a random
drama sections are also reasons, include in the an- phenomenal and hence the selection from among
separately introduced by thology. This is true espe- poetry emanating from hundreds of authors
Raveendran, while the fic- cially of the younger such an age has to be seen worthy of possible inclu-
tion section is introduced writers of the present age separately, and its canon sion. One would expect
by both the editors to- who have been chosen should be determined on that perhaps prose would
gether. Raveendran has in- keeping in view their rep- different reference points, have had a lot more to be
dividually contributed to resentative status rather and not by implying that represented, as it has been
the anthology in a consid- than canonical merit.” The their canonical merit is freed in the instant case
erable manner. last two italicised words suspect. from the traditional re-
striction to naturally be-
AN INSTANCE OF BIAS long to the genre of literary
The works represented in criticism in similar cir-
the poetry section start cumstances and thrown
with those of N. Kumaran open the entire gamut of
Asan (1873-1924) and prose writings for selec-
ends with M.R. Renuku- tion. Although different
mar (born 1969), with de- kinds of prose writings are
letions of notable names represented here, import-
like that of T.P. Rajeevan, ant areas such as
THE HINDU ARCHIVES

who is one of the pioneers travelogue and popular

BUSINESS LINE

of the “post”-modern era science are seen left out.

after Balachandran Chul-
likkad; the name of N.G. DOMINANT GENRE
Unnikrishnan, whom The fiction section begins
many of the new crop of V . T . B H A T T AT H I R IP P A D . J. DEVIKA. with O. Chandu Menon
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 88
(1847-1899) and ends with
S. Sithara (b.1976). Fiction
is undoubtedly the domin-
ant genre in modern
Malayalam literature, and
it developed over a little
more than a century, from
the late 19th. The develop-
ment it has reached, espe-
cially the short story, is
phenomenal, and some-
times the cognoscenti at-
tribute world-level status
to it.
Of the fiction writers
(apart from those already
mentioned below along
with the reason for their
exclusion), the omission of
Parappurathu is glaring.
Along with Kovilan and
Nandanar, he had already
been ghettoised into the
genre of “Military Story
Writers” in the modernist
critical canon in Malay-
alam, and the present edit-
ors have missed an
opportunity to see,
through fresh eyes, the
master who contributed
such iconic social novels as
Aranaazhikaneram (Just
a Fraction of an Hour).
Failing to mention, at least
in the introduction, the
names of short story
writers such as Aymanam
John, Victor Lenus and
Thomas Joseph, whose
contributions are import-
ant in defining the curve of
the phenomenal growth of
postmodern Malayalam
short story, stands out. An-
other jarring note is when
the name of Paul Zacharia
(Vol.2, page 23) is men-
tioned only along with the
postmodernists who flour-
ished since the 1980s,
whereas he is a strong
presence of the 1970s, win-
ning the Kerala Sahitya
Akademi award in 1978.
Dropping of such cult
writers as Kesari Bal-
akrishna Pillai, pioneering
literary critic and philo-
The editors have done a
highly commendable job of
choosing what they thought
was the best offered in
Malayalam literature in
modern times.
sopher who inspired mod-
ernism in Malayalam,
Vaikom Muhammad
Basheer, Madhavikutty,
besides Kovilan, N.P.
Muhammad, and K.P.
Ramanunni—all fiction
writers—and R. Narendra
Prasad, literary critic and
important dramatist, ow-
ing to problems connected
with copyright clearance
as mentioned in the Gen-
eral Introduction by
Raveendran, is regret-
table. That said, it should
not be lost sight of that the
editors have done a highly
A PO R T R A IT O F Thunchath Ezhuthachan kept at his
memorial in Chittur.
89
commendable job of
choosing what they
thought was the best
offered in Malayalam liter-
ature in modern times, es-
pecially after the Western
genres, such as the novel,
the short story and drama
got established in the
language.
The General Introduc-
tion by Raveendran, along
with his individual intro-
ductions for the poetry,
drama and fiction sections,
as well as Jayasree’s intro-
duction for the prose sec-
tion, deserve to be
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
reviewed closely, as they
constitute serious studies
regarding the origin and
development of these
genres in Malayalam.
HISTORICAL SURVEY
In the General Introduc-
tion, Raveendran launches
on a historical survey laced
with patches of incisive
analyses of the different
phases of the more than a
millennium-old life of
Malayalam literature.
From the 9th century C.E.,
there has been a “steady
flow of written literature in
the language, first in the
shape of inscriptions and
later, from the 12th cen-
tury, in the form of literary
works, some of them trans-
lations and adaptations
from Sanskrit”. This liter-
ature emerges from two
traditions—the first being
the “Paattu” (songs) tradi-
tion following the ritual,
folk and country songs
from the hoary past which
also are occasionally laced
with Tamil phrases and ex-
pressions, and the other
being the “Mani-
pravaalam” tradition, a
mixture of two languages,
in which Mani (ruby)
stands for Tamil, and later
Malayalam (as it emerged
as an independent lan-
guage), and Pravaalam
(which means coral in
Sanskrit) representing
Sanskrit. With Ramachar-
itam written in the Paattu
tradition by Cheeraman
(celebrated as the first
Malayalam poet) in the
second half of the ninth
century and Vaisikatan-
tram in the Mani-
pravaalam tradition,
Malayalam literature be-
gins its journey in the writ-
ten form. Leelatilakam is a
14th century work on the
grammar and rhetoric of
Manipravaalam.
 Raveendran then
traces the major works in
both traditions through
the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th
and 16th centuries, cul-
minating in the works of
Thunchath
Ezhuthachan—acclaimed
as the “Father of the
Malayalam Language”—
who attained, “under the
power of poetic imagina-
tion”, a synthesis, not only
of the two traditions to the
highest possible degree of
perfection, but also of
many others like folk songs
and ballads orally handed
down the centuries and
narratives of ritual and so-
cial performances.
Prominent among the
Paattus were Vadakkan
Paattukal (Northern Bal-
lads) and Thekkan Paat-
tukal (Southern Ballads)
accumulated over several
centuries but collected into
anthologies much later.
Thottams were the chorus-
narratives and action-de-
scriptions of ritual per-
formances such as
Theyyam, Thira and Mudi-
yettu. Aattaprakaarams
were stage manuals pre-
pared in the vernacular for
classical Sanskrit drama
like Koodiyattam, for the
benefit of performers,
while Kramadeepikas
were detailed instructions
for the preparation of the
stage—both in lucid prose
in the language from as
early as the ninth century.
In Manipravaalam, the
literary form Champu, de-
riving from the interspers-
ing of verse and prose
patches, was prevalent.
Even as Malayalam de-
veloped into a full-fledged
language, the tradition of
Champu survived into
much later centuries.
Along with
Ezhuthachan in the 16th
century, bhakti was full-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
A T T O OR R A VI V A RM A and O.N.V. Kurup.
blown in the works of
Poonthanam Namboodiri,
at the tail end of the bhakti
movement launched in
south India in the 6th cen-
tury by Naayanmars (Saiv-
ite saints) and Alwars
(Vaishnavite saints) of
Tamil and the Veerasaiva
Vachanakaaras of Kan-
nada. The social reforma-
tion ingrained in the
classless, casteless teach-
ings of the advocates of
bhakti could be reached to
the common masses only if
the writing was done in
their tongue. The journey
of the vernacular, which
began in the ninth century
thus comes to a fruitful
conclusion, as exemplified
in the works of Ezhut-
tachan and Poonthaanam.
‘AATTTAKKATHAS’
The age of Ezhuthachan
and Poonthaanam were
followed by the great com-
posers of Aattakkathas, of
the play scripts of Kath-
akali performances, the
most prominent among
whom is Unnai Varier,
whose Nalacharitam in
four parts, meant for four
nights of performance, is
the most poetic of all, and
remains unparalleled to
this day.
The great poet-dram-
atist of the 18th century,
Kunchan Nambiar, whose
90
of subsequent eras to intro-
spect and also to accom-
modate new genres such as
the novel, the short story,
modern drama and mod-
ern prose.
MALAYALAM POETRY
Raveendran’s individual
C. RATHEESH KUMAR
introductions of the po-
etry, drama and fiction
(along with Jayasree) sec-
tions are also discursive,
interspersed with analyses.
In his introduction to
the poetry section,
Tullal texts meant for dif- Raveendran traces the his-
ferent caste groupings tory of the Malayalam po-
among the depressed etry of the 20th century,
classes, marks a great de- beginning with the tension
parture from the hitherto between “tradition” and
canonised versions, in that “modernity” not only in the
they incorporated the literary sphere but in polit-
speech patterns of these ical, social and cultural
subgroups as well as ones as well. The move-
offered scathing criticism ment led by Mahatma Ayy-
of the social set-up of the ankaali, for the rights of the
times. In the performance depressed classes as indi-
of Tullal, Nambiar also ad- viduals, Sree Narayana
opted elements of the Guru’s wide-ranging social
Chakyar Kuthu, the ple- reforms involving organ-
beian version of the classic ising and educating the
Koodiyattam, in providing backward castes, and many
prose narrative patches. All other such reformers, had
these proved to be tre- awakened the Kerala soci-
mendous contributions in ety, which was divided into
the development of Malay- many strata.
alam as a modern During the period from
language. the end of the 19th century
The last part of the de- to the early 20th, the ad-
velopment of the language vances made through social
was its scientific structur- renaissance could not be
ing, for which credit must represented in poetry
be given to Christian mis- through the prevailing lan-
sionaries who came to Ker- guage ridden with the
ala between the 18th and “faded echo of the mediocre
19th centuries. Johan traditions in Sanskrit, or a
Ernst Hanxleden (better copy of the language of ef-
known as Arnos Padiri, fete romanticism imbibed
1681-1732), Clement from the West”, which was
Pianius (1731-1782), John in use by poets of diverse
Philip Wesdin (Poulinose sensibilities, ranging from
Padiri) and Herman Gun- the Venmani poets of lurid
dert (1814-1893) were erotica to Kerala Varma
Malayalam’s first gram- Valiayakoil Thampuran
marians and lexicograph- and Kodungalloor Kun-
ers. Their objective vision hikkuttan Thampuran of
of the language and literat- the grand discourses, and
ure prompted the writers V.C. Balakrishna Panikkar,
the pioneering pre-ro-
mantic. It was into this
scenario that Kumaran
Asan, the greatest of the
pre-modernists, arrived.
He who became a Ma-
hakavi without writing a
Mahakavya was, however,
flanked by Ulloor S. Para-
meswara Iyer, who
brought gravity of expres-
sion to the language, and
Vallathol Narayana
Menon, who was noted for
the felicity of his expres-
sion—the trinity brought
the Romantic Era in
Malayalam poetry cul-
minated in the excess of
Changampuzha Krish-
napillai and dissipated into
more sober strains in later
poets such as P. Bhaskaran,
O.N.V. Kurup and Vayalar
Ramavarma. Even in the
works of the later trinity of
poets, Edasserry, Vylop-
pilly and P. Kunhiraman
Nair, the sap roots of ro-
manticism played a subter-
ranean role, especially in
the case of the latter.
The advent of modern-
ists, with K. Ayyappa Pan-
iker, Madhavan
Ayyappathu, N.N. Kakkad
and others in the late 1950s,
followed by the blossoming
of Aattoor Ravivarma,
Kadammanitta Ra-
makrishnan, K. Satchid-
anandan, K.G. Sankra
Pillai, D. Vinayachandran
and Maythil Radhakrish-
nan, among others, fol-
lowed by the “in-between”
poets such as K.A. Jay-
asheelan, N.G. Unnikrish-
nan and T.P. Rajeevan,
who served as a bridge
between the poets of the
present who begin their
flowering from the mid
1980s—Raveendran’s in-
troduction to the section
thus covers the whole am-
bit of modern Malayalam
poetry.
The introduction to
S . G O P A K UM A R
K . A Y Y A P P A P A N I K ER and K. Satchidanandan.
the prose section is an over-
arching study of prose be-
ginning from the passages
found in the Yajurveda
(1400-1000 BCE) and ex-
ploring examples in
Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali
down the centuries, until
the ninth century, and
again tracing the earliest
appearance of prose in the
language, which developed
into Malayalam, as found
in the Vazhappalli
Saashanam of the Chera
King Rajasekhara Varman
who ruled from 820-844 to
the present. This 16-page-
long (pages 315-330) au-
thoritative account
provides a non-Malayalee
reader with a glimpse of
how the language has been
built on the strong founda-
tions of solid prose. Pro-
ceeding on the
E D A SS E R Y G O V I ND A N N A I R and
Vayalar Ramavarma.
91
Pillai, the performance tra-
ditions of drama, ranging
from the historical, reli-
gious, mythological, social,
realist and experimental to
the present are dwelt upon.
The 23-page introduc-
tion to the fiction section
by Raveendran and Jayas-
S . R . R A G H U N AT H A N
ree is a rich study, which
will benefit researchers in
the area. Though they be-
gin by mentioning the 1877
work Ghaatakavadham
(The Slayer Slain) written
by an English lady, Mrs.
above-described story of Collins, and Archdeacon
the history of the develop- Koshy’s Pullelikkunju
ment of the language, Jay- (1882), they acknowledge
asree ably traces the that Appu Nedungadi’s
history of prose in Kundalata (1887), as liter-
Malayalam. ary historians admit, is the
The introduction to the first Malayalam novel.
drama section by Next in line, Chandu Men-
Raveendran is a compre- on’s Indulekha (1889), is
hensive study, beginning the first Malayalam novel
from the ritual and folk modelled effectively on the
performance forms. He Western genre. From this
moves on to describe how point on, the introduction
Malayalam theatre, a mod- furnishes a gripping ac-
ern phenomenon, de- count of the development
veloped. of the genre of fiction in
Beginning from the Malayalam, to date.
translations of Altogether, these two
Shakespeare’s The Comedy volumes give non-
of Errors and Kalidasa’s Malayalee readers, and
Abhijnaana Shakuntalam most importantly, the dia-
by Kerala Varma spora who do not mostly
Valiyakoyil Thampuran, speak, read or write their
the study covers the next parents’ or forebears’
130 years. Moving on from mother tongue, a solid,
the farces of C.V. Raman tangible proof of the exist-
ence of their proud culture
and heritage. Universities
outside Kerala and
abroad, with Malayalam
departments, or Chairs,
would greatly benefit from
this anthology. Let us
hope more comprehensive
anthologies of this type
are brought out in future,
THE HINDU ARCHIVES
taking care of the short-
comings pointed out.
However, it is to be em-
phasised once again that,
with all its imperfections,
this anthology certainly
holds its own. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 BO OK S in review
Different drumbeat
A well-curated collection of insightful essays
celebrating important new voices in contemporary
Hindi cinema. BY R A M E S H C H A K R A P A N I
T HE year 1991 was a wa-
tershed year not just
for the socio-economic
milieu of the country but
for the cinematic land-
scape as well and, by ex-
tension, popular culture.
So it is befitting that this
compendium of essays on
contemporary Bollywood
directors uses that year as
the benchmark for its
definition of contempo-
rariness.
Aysha Iqbal Viswamo-
han and Vimal Mohan
John have embarked on a
praiseworthy academic ex-
ercise, which chronicles
the rise of several exciting
new film-makers who have
transformed Bollywood in
many ways by bravely tak-
ing the road not taken. By
remaining within the pop-
ular cinema framework
and standing their ground,
they have given us cinema
that is aesthetically captiv-
ating and thematically
challenging. Breaking free
from the boilerplate for-
mulaic offerings that un-
fortunately still account for
a majority of Hindi films,
these auteurs have taken
Hindi cinema and its aco-
lytes on a new journey that
is both exalting and
engaging.
Amid the information
deluge that the Internet
and social media have un-
leashed and thanks to a
widespread need for nos-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
talgia, the 1980s are com-
ing back into fashion. But,
to mimic a tired Internet
meme, “only the 80s kids
will know” how dreadful
that decade was for popu-
lar Hindi cinema, until
film-makers like Mansoor
Khan and Vidhu Vinod
Chopra arrived on the
scene with their brand of
cinema. Their works sowed
the seeds of change in a
moribund industry that
was reeling under the on-
slaught of films that were
mindless and insipid.
Khan and Chopra,
along with Sudhir Mishra,
are the only directors who
made their debut in the
1980s to be featured in the
book.
The advent of liberal-
isation, which brought
ground-breaking changes
to every facet of life in In-
dia, was bound to mould
92
Behind the Scenes
Contemporary
Bollywood Directors
and their Cinema
Edited by Aysha
Iqbal Viswamohan
and Vimal Mohan
John
Sage Publications
India, 2017
Pages: 392
Price: Rs.950
the sensibilities of film-
makers and filmgoers alike,
which partially explains the
success of film-makers
whose craft and theme se-
lection were out of the or-
dinary. They were as much
a product of their time as
they influenced it.
From the days of being
derided as a kitsch factory
churning out mediocre
spectacles or maudlin so-
cials, Bollywood has come a
long way, finally taking its
rightful place in the global
scheme of things. Hand-in-
hand with the global recog-
nition of the unique brand
of cinema that it is, and the
new dimension it brings to
visual storytelling, film
writing too has come of age.
Just as making an epic like
Gangs of Wasseypur would
have been unthinkable in
another era, books that
take Bollywood seriously
and attempt to locate its
importance in the larger
national narrative, which
was impossible just a few
decades ago, are now part
of a new strand of literat-
ure.
The book is divided
into three distinct parts,
the first of which examines
the cinema of glamour and
the celebration that char-
acterises the output of nou-
veau auteurs. The second
part dwells on the place of
history, politics and society
in Bollywood as seen
through the cinema of
commentaries and inter-
ventions, while the third is
devoted to Bollywood’s wo-
men, gender politics and
representation.
Although no such col-
lection of essays can be
complete, and the authors
do admit that not all dir-
ectors can be included in
every anthology, it was sur-
prising to see Ram Gopal
Varma get just a passing
mention in the introduc-
tion. One of the first South
Indian film-makers to
make it big in Bollywood
without resorting to re-
makes, he played a signific-
ant role in dramatically
changing the filmgoing ex-
perience, be it through a
breezy entertainer like
Rangeela (which also cata-
pulted A.R. Rahman on to
the national stage as a
name to reckon with and
not a one-Roja-wonder) or
a gritty gangster flick like
Company.
It is the prerogative of
any editor to include or ex-
clude a stalwart but one
hopes that the editors will
follow up this remarkable
volume with one devoted
to those who have been left
out. $
 BO OK S article
Impeaching Trump
The book is an invaluable guide to the drama
unfolding on Capitol Hill as a series of exposures
threaten to derail the Trump presidency.
BY A . G . N O O R A N I
D URING the presiden-
tial elections in the
United States last year,
Professor Allan J. Licht-
man made two predictions.
One was that Donald
Trump would win. It came
true and Trump sent him a
note of thanks. The other
prediction was that Trump
would be impeached dur-
ing his term. It remains to
be seen whether this pre-
diction also comes true.
Impeachment is an in-
herently political process
to secure a judicial verdict
based on evidence by
politicians sitting as
judges. Its farce was ex-
posed in India on August
27, 1992, by Prime Minis-
ter P.V. Narasimha Rao’s
dishonourable conduct.
Justice V. Ramaswami
went scot-free. We have a
lot to learn from what is
afoot in the U.S. In Britain,
home of the impeachment
process, this rusty, obsolete
process has been dis-
carded. The last case of im-
peachment was in 1806.
Calling for the im-
peachment of Supreme
Court Justice William O.
Douglas in 1970, then Con-
gressman Gerald Ford as-
serted that “an
impeachable offence is
whatever a majority of the
House of Representatives
considers it to be at a given
moment in history”. Article
II, Section 3 of the U.S.
Constitution states: “The
President, Vice President
and all civil officers of the
United States, shall be re-
moved from office on Im-
peachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason,
Bribery, or other high
Crimes and Misdemean-
ors.” The latter expression
goes beyond offences
defined in the law of
crimes. Alexander
Hamilton held in The Fed-
eralist Papers No. 65 that it
covers “offences which pro-
ceed from the misconduct
of public men, or, in other
words, from the abuse or
violation of some public
trust. They are of a nature
which may with peculiar
93
The Case for
Impeachment
By Allan J. Lichtman
HarperCollins
Pages: 290
Price: £9.99
propriety be denominated
political, as they relate
chiefly to injuries done im-
mediately to the society
itself.”
One charge concerns
violation of the Emolu-
ments Clause, Article I,
Section 9, Clause 8 of the
U.S. Constitution. It says
that “no person holding any
office of profit or trust un-
der [the United States],
shall, without the Consent
of the Congress, accept any
present, emolument, office,
or title, of any kind
whatever, from any King,
Prince, or foreign State.”
Hamilton wrote in Federal-
ist No. 22, “One of the weak
sides of republics, among
their numerous advant-
ages, is that they afford too
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
easy an inlet to foreign
corruption.”
Trump has used his of-
fice to enrich himself and
members of his family. His
“winter White House”,
Mar-a-Lago, a private club
he owns, charges a
$200,000 initiation fee for
members to get access to
him, his head-of-state
guests, and his staff. Mem-
bership fees go as high as
$350,000 at his Bedmin-
ster, New Jersey golf club,
where Trump spent his
August vacation. One of his
first acts as President was a
directive reversing a 2015
decision by the Environ-
mental Protection Agency
under the Clean Water Act
that would have signific-
antly raised water costs at
these and other golf
courses in which he has in-
vested more than $1 billion
over the past 10 years. He
has provided free advert-
ising for properties he
owns by visiting them on
more than 75 days so far,
approximately a third of
the days he has been in
office.
It appears that the
main charge he would have
to face is obstruction of
justice. Trump sacked the
Federal Bureau of Invest-
igation (FBI) Director
James Comey because he
refused to stop investiga-
tions of “the Russian Scan-
dal”. A lot depends on the
results of the investiga-
tions by Robert Mueller,
the Special Counsel who
was appointed to investig-
ate Russian interference in
the presidential election
last year.
On October 30 this
year, Mueller filed his first
criminal charges against
members of Trump’s pres-
idential campaign. He
charged former Trump
campaign chairman, Paul
Manafort, and his business
partner, Rick Gates, with a
scheme to conceal some
$20 million, much of it
earned for lobbying work
in Ukraine undertaken for
pro-Russian interests. The
indictments, to which both
men plead not guilty, allege
that Manafort spent mil-
lions on Range Rovers and
landscaping at properties
in Florida, Manhattan and
the Hamptons. He also
dropped $934,000 at an
antique rug shop,
$849,000 on clothing in
New York and $520,000 at
a men’s outfitters in Bever-
ley Hills.
A second set of charges
concerns a young cam-
paign operative, George
Papadopoulos, who has
pleaded guilty to lying to
federal officials. Trump
tweeted that “few people
knew the young, low level
volunteer named George,
who has already proven to
be a liar”. Alas for the
Trump campaign, the plea
deal relates that after being
flipped and turned into a
“proactive co-operator” by
prosecutors, “young
George disclosed months
of contacts with a London-
based academic with Rus-
sian ties, ‘the Professor’,
and a mysterious ‘Female
Russian National’ who
were keenly interested in
his role with Team Trump,
and told him in late April
2016 that the Russian gov-
ernment had ‘dirt’ on Mrs.
Clinton in the form of
‘thousands of e-mails’.
“Though the proven-
ance of those e-mails is not
clear, the outside world did
not learn until June 2016
that embarrassing emails
had been stolen from the
Democratic National
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
R O B E RT M U EL L E R , the Special Counsel who was
appointed to investigate Russian interference in the
presidential election.
Committee (DNC), and
learned only in October
that e-mails had also been
hacked from the account of
John Podesta, head of the
Clinton campaign. Amer-
ican intelligence chiefs
blamed those hacking at-
tacks on Russian military
intelligence” (The Econom-
ist: November 4, 2017).
Professor Lichtman’s
book is as lucid in style as it
is scholarly in substance; a
guide for the lay reader as
well as the specialist. It
covers history, law and
politics and is an invalu-
able guide to the drama as
it unfolds itself on Capitol
Hill in the U.S. as expos-
ures follow on the damages
of Trump’s rogue presid-
ency. When and how will it
reach the critical mass that
triggers the implosion of
such a presidency?
Charges are brought by
the House of Representat-
ives for adjudication by the
Senate. To lend a veneer of
the judicial process, the
94
ALEX WONG/AFP
Chief Justice of the Su-
preme Court, himself a
political appointee,
presides over the farce. In
Bill Clinton’s case it was
Justice William Rehnquist,
an arch Conservative.
Andrew Johnson, im-
peached in 1868, escaped
by a whisker in a one-vote
victory. Richard Nixon es-
caped in 1974 by resigning
from his office. Bill Clin-
ton’s impeachment failed
in 1998. “One out of every
fourteen U.S. Presidents
has faced impeachment.
Gamblers have become
rich betting on longer odds
than that,” the author
remarks.
THE PROCEDURE
First, the procedure is
clearer than the definition
of the impeachable offence.
The Judiciary Committee
of the House of Represent-
atives will conduct the in-
vestigation based on the
report of the Special Pro-
secutor and other viola-
tions which the book
mentions. The Commit-
tee’s report goes to the full
House for its adoption. It
votes on each Article of Im-
peachment. If the House
decides in favour of im-
peachment, the case goes
for a trial by the Senate, the
Chief Justice presiding. As
against the acquittal of two
Presidents, eight judges,
appointed for life, were
convicted or impeached.
The main issue is
whether the Republicans
of 2017 will react the way
those in 1974 did. “Even
early in his presidency,
Donald Trump exhibits the
same tendencies that led
Nixon to violate the most
basic standards of morality
and threaten the founda-
tions of our democracy.
Both Nixon and Trump ex-
hibited a determination to
never quit, to win at all
costs, to attack and never
back down, and to flout
conventional rules and re-
straints. But as ambitious
and headstrong as they
were, they also shared a
compulsion to deflect
blame, and they were
riddled with insecurities.
They exploited the resent-
ments of white working
class Americans and split
the world into enemies and
loyalists. In the first month
of his presidency Trump
talked more about ‘en-
emies’ than any other pres-
ident in history. Neither
man allowed the law, the
truth, the free press, or the
potential for collateral
damage to others to im-
pede their personal agen-
das. They cared little about
ideology but very much
about adulation and
power. They had little use
for checks and balances
and stretched the reach of
presidential authority to its
outer limits. They obsessed
over secrecy and thirsted
for control without
dissent.…
“In 1974, two years
after winning a landslide
victory, Nixon avoided
near certain impeachment
and removal by becoming
the only American presid-
ent to resign the office.
Nixon’s story is the cau-
tionary tale for Donald
Trump.”
There has been a con-
cise narrative of Nixon’s
fall. John Dean, Nixon’s
former White House coun-
sel whose testimony helped
uncover the truths of Wa-
tergate, warned that
Trump could be headed for
a Nixonian crash. “The way
the Trump presidency is
beginning it is safe to say it
will end in calamity. It is
almost a certainty. Even
Republicans know this!”
Trump was a law-
breaker for years in his ca-
reer as a magnate. “As a
private citizen Donald
Trump has escaped serious
retribution for his crimes
and transgressions. He’s
settled civil lawsuits char-
ging him with breaking
racketeering and civil
rights laws, paid fines that
he could well afford, pro-
tracted litigation, and con-
cealed lawbreaking for
many years. There are two
avenues of impeachment
opened by Trump’s prac-
tice of disregarding the
law. First, although un-
likely, the House of Rep-
resentatives could vote
Articles of Impeachment
and the Senate could con-
vict Trump for illegal acts
that occurred prior to as-
suming office. The Consti-
tution specifies no time
limits on any of its enumer-
ated impeachable offences.
There is no statute of limit-
ations and no judicial re-
view of decisions made by
P A U L M A N A F O R T , former Trump campaign
chairman. Mueller filed his first criminal charges
against members of Trump’s presidential campaign.
either the House or the
Senate. Past actions could
also become part of a larger
impeachment.
“There are several laws
that I believe Trump might
break while in office. His
expansive view of presid-
ential authority echoes
Richard Nixon’s claim that
‘when the President does it,
that means that it is not
illegal’. Nixon was wrong
and paid a heavy price for
his error. As the expression
goes, history does not re-
peat itself, but it rhymes.”
The author documents
Trump’s violations of the
law as President. “These
examples demonstrate
Trump has also already ar-
guably violated a stagger-
ing number of federal and
state laws: The Fair Hous-
ing Act, The New York
charity law, tax laws, the
Cuban embargo, casino
regulations, the RICO
[Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organisations]
statute, and laws against
95
in part for transgressions
committed prior to his as-
suming the federal judge-
ship. The Senate convicted
Porteous on all four articles
that included charges of
misconduct while he
served as a state court
judge and of having lied to
the Senate and the FBI
during his confirmation
process for the federal
bench.” The author was a
federal prosecutor and
State Attorney-General.
Trump arrogantly as-
serts, “the President can’t
JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AP
have a conflict of interest”.
Cases of his conflicts of in-
terest are many. The book
discusses this as well as the
foreign “emoluments”
clause and Trump’s rich
history of lies which was
known to all years before
the election; not least be-
cause of Trump’s 1987
employing illegal immig- book The Art of the Deal.
rants. And any number of
these laws could, if resur- RUSSIAN CONNECTION
rected through an investig- Particularly interesting is
ation, trigger Chapter 8 on “The Russian
impeachment while in of- Connections”. A Report of
fice. “The most likely tar- the Office of the Director of
gets of an impeachment National Intelligence,
inquiry are the illegal oper- dated January 6, 2017,
ations of his Foundation concluded: “We assess
and his alleged exploita- Russian President Vladmir
tion of undocumented im- Putin ordered an influence
migrants at his modelling campaign in 2016 aimed at
agencies. Both violations the U.S. presidential elec-
are recent and significant. tion. Russia’s goals were to
The employment of undoc- undermine public faith in
umented immigrants also the U.S. democratic pro-
contradicts one of Trump’s cess, denigrate Secretary
fundamental appeals, to a [Hillary] Clinton, and
fundamental theme of the harm her electability and
Trump campaign and potential presidency. We
presidency: to keep Amer- further assess Putin and
ican jobs for Americans. the Russian government
“Impeachment, as I’ve developed a clear prefer-
stressed, need not be lim- ence for President-elect
ited to violations that occur Trump.” Evidence piles up
during the President’s day after day to support
term of office. In 2010, the these findings. It depends
House impeached and the on how far Special Counsel
Senate convicted Louisi- Robert Mueller’s report
ana district court judge G. will go to damn Donald
Thomas Porteous, at least Trump himself. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
The vengeance
V ILAS SINGH stood dazzled for a mo-
ment. A hundred fingers of fire rent
asunder the huge dome of darkness above.
He felt a yard or two of the lightning creep-
ing into his veins, sparking off a double-
edged sensation. Among the fiery designs
that flashed along the horizon he saw Ba-
hadur’s face. And, the suddenness and the
sharpness of the blaze reminded him of his
own dagger. Surely, he could be equally sud-
den in handling it, in driving it across Ba-
hadur’s breast—he assured himself.
He could not sleep a wink. Despite his
vigorous attempts at dispelling it, his mind
remained filled with the ominous presence
of that hated enemy. Even the memory of
the sweet little face peeping out of his home
in the faraway village failed to make a little
room for it.
He left the mat and began strolling
along the narrow verandah of the inn. His
legs were tired. But he could not afford to
rest—not until he had wreaked his ven-
geance on Bahadur. On the verge of weep-
ing, he repeated his oath. He must finish
Bahadur off. If he had ever had one mission
in life, it was this.
There was yet another flare along the
horizon. Vilas Singh shut his eyes. Light-
Compared to Hardy,
ning was a disturbing reminder. It flashes
Saki and O. Henry, and disappears. One cannot catch it. So was
Manoj Das brings the Bahadur who had, time and again, given
power of a truly him the slip. But Vilas Singh had not given
bilingual writer to his up. Defeats had only made him tougher.
fiction, crafting Morning was still a couple of hours away
when he resumed walking. And it was just at
language and form to
the crack of dawn that he reached Shashi-
suit the tale. The kala’s hut.
original in Odia “Did you get him? Are you avenged and
(“Shatru”, 1972) satisfied?” asked Shashikala while handing
appeared in English out a mugful of tea.
“No.” Vilas Singh’s reply sounded like an
in 1980 and,
explosion. He was sprawling on the ver-
translated by the andah. The jerk wrought by his own roar
author himself, made him sit up stiff.
carries the double “I had always a feeling that one day you
force of both will happen to pass this way and I shall avail
languages. of the opportunity to cajole you to give up
your crazy pursuit. You are yet to cross your
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 96
youth. The whole life is before you. Just as
the war is nothing more than a memory, you
ought to also allow all that went with it to be
buried in the past. Besides, it is hardly a year
since you got married. Is it sensible for you
to leave your sweet home behind and pursue
an unfortunate wretch?” Shashikala’s voice
was soaked in conscience and compassion.
Vilas Singh reacted like a tickled ser-
pent. He was ready to splash Shashikala’s
face with his hot tea, but checked himself
and gasped.
“A brazen face like mine does not get
scorched easily,” Shashikala croodled and
then burst into a sonorous laughter.
The meadow before the hut was marked
by hedges and bushes. They had just begun
recovering their individual forms out of the
dusk. Against the sky over the eastern hori-
zon could be made out the flight of the first
covey of early birds.
“Listen, Singh, pay heed to my appeal.
Look how the night is nearing end. View
those past two years in the frontier as a night
that was over. Take note of the fresh dawn.
Begin a new life, as fresh as the dawn.”
Shashikala had placed her hand on Vilas
Singh’s shoulder. But Vilas Singh flung it
aside and stood up.
“Please finish your tea,” pleaded Shashi-
kala. Vilas Singh laughed. The laughter
combined, in a dramatic fashion, abhor-
rence and sarcasm. “Shashi!” he groaned,
“Such sage advice is not expected from the
character that you are! Hadn’t it been your
dharma, throughout, to lift a cup right to
one’s lips only to take it away? It is you who
had led me to Sumati. Then, just when I had
become entirely possessed by her, you intro-
duced her to Bahadur. And the scoundrel
bewitched her.”
Smile, like a flitting butterfly, had sud-
denly left Vilas Singh’s lips and alighted on
Shashikala’s, where it looked much more
natural and purposeful.
“Singh, while complaining, you seem to
forget all about my occupation during those
evil days. I used to bestow my attention
equally on all. It was not with any greater
affection that I had led Bahadur to
Sumati. Needless to say, others had
preceded you just as you preceded
Bahadur. Sumati too was expected to
be impartial in doling out her fa-
vours. But the poor girl miserably
deviated. She fell for Bahadur. She
did not realise how dangerous it was
to fall for anyone in the pattern of life
into which destiny had pushed her.
To fall once meant to fall again. The
poor creature had to pay dearly for
her error. You know about that, don’t
you?” Shashikala looked askance.
“I know. In fact, I came to know
about it the very day Bahadur
murdered her.”
Shashikala had come closer to
Vilas Singh. Stroking his back, she
whispered, “Let me tell you what you
do not know. If you are seeking to kill
Bahadur, it is not because he took
Sumati away from you, but because
he killed Sumati and thereby asser-
ted his ultimate right on her—some-
thing that you failed to do.’
“Never. I would have been the
last man to murmur even if Sumati
were to be shredded by a dozen
hounds,” shouted Vilas Singh. “How
do you forget that Bahadur snatched
not only Sumati away from me, but
also my savings of a decade?” Vilas
Singh motioned as if he was protect-
ing himself from some invisible
enemy.
“I'm no child, Singh, to accept
your explanation. However, let me
tell you that it is just impossible to
claim the ultimate victory on one by
killing the person. Bahadur killed
Sumati spurred by a mad desire to
possess her fully. But one that is dead
had already given you the slip. You
cannot have the satisfaction of exer-
cising your authority on one who is
not there to revolt against it. And,
how on earth can you possess one
who was dead? Is it not rather the
privilege of the dead to possess you? I
know for certain that Bahadur, after
killing Sumati, had not passed a mo-
ment without longing for her. He
lives in a hell of anguish.”
“I don’t care. I told you, didn’t I?
That Bahadur’s crime against me
was not limited to his eloping with
Sumati!” groaned Vilas Singh.
“I insist, Singh, that the loss of
money cannot be the inspiration be-
hind your mission. If it were so, you
would have gone satisfied a year ago
when you wounded him on the fore-
head,” asserted Shashikala.
Vilas Singh laughed gleefully.
“Shashi! Have you ever met him after
my inflicting that wound on him? Do
you think that the scar might heal up
in his lifetime?” Vilas Singh betrayed
his ardent eagerness for an answer.
“I don’t think so.”
“Thanks!” Vilas Singh burst into
a fresh peal of laughter, more lusty
than ever and, from the fold of his
clothes, flashed out a dagger. He
raised it for Shashikala to see it fully.
Against the silent and serene dawn,
the dagger looked grisly. Shashikala
was beset with melancholy.
* * *
Evening had just set in when
Vilas Singh stood on the outskirts of
the bazaar. He straightened his
limbs. He knew that he was on the
verge of success, at the end of a con-
tinuous chase for five months. His
effort, of course, went back to five
years—years of anguish, wandering
and frustrations, interrupted only by
a brief though dreamy period at
home during which he got married.
Time and again, when he was al-
most sure that his net was closing in
on the enemy, the latter had escaped.
But, something like intuition in-
formed Vilas Singh, there was no get-
ting away for the fellow this time.
Bahadur was under the impression
that Vilas Singh once married and
declared heir to an unexpected estate
in the village, had given up the chase.
In fact, Vilas Singh himself had ar-
ranged to foster this impression in
him. The fellow must be caught abso-
lutely unawares.
By the time Vilas Singh strolled
into the tavern at the far end of the
sleepy little town, it was past first
97
quarter of the night. The tavern was
Bahadur’s haunt. He and his gang
visited it regularly. Vilas Singh’s dis-
guise was perfect. He easily mingled
with the few other customers, but
occupied a seat right at the entrance.
He must do his job as soon as Ba-
hadur steps in. Not a second, not a
word was to be wasted. Behind the
tavern stretched a valley with dark
ravines. There should be no difficulty
in his making off. It was not likely
that Bahadur’s comrades would raise
a hue and cry or launch a hunt for
him. For, an investigation would
only disclose the victim’s identity, in-
evitably leading to the members of
the gang.
But the only ritual Vilas Singh
proposed to perform was to let the
dying enemy have a glimpse of his
true face. The beard he wore was
easily detachable.
Those in the tavern were drink-
ing. Vilas Singh only pretended to
drink. His look was glued to the door.
But he knew that two or three fellows
inside the tavern had begun casting
suspicious glances at him. He was
growing impatient.
An hour passed. Suddenly the
doors of the tavern left ajar till then
flung open. Vilas Singh stood up hur-
riedly. But none of the two visitors
was Bahadur, though one was his
closest collaborator. It was for this
one that Bahadur had narrowly es-
caped death in the hands of Vilas
Singh on the last occasion.
The cluster of drinkers looked at
the door. Even the dim light revealed
their anxiety, and the two visitors
looked distressed.
“So?” asked one from the cluster.
“Finished!” the two replied.
From the reaction of the listeners
it was evident that the news was not
unexpected. Even then some of them
sighed and everybody stood up. Vilas
Singh followed them.
A vague fear was overtaking him.
The road was uneven and rocky. He
stumbled over several boulders as he
walked behind the silent gang,
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
shadow-like. They climbed a hillock
and entered the small house atop it.
The dead body lay on an old rope-
cot. There were a number of medi-
cine bottles and glasses around. The
fellow must have suffered for long.
He had been reduced to a wreck.
Someone raised a lantern.
And at once the deep scar on the
corpse’s forehead glimmered in the
light.
There was a shriek. It was from
Vilas Singh, the architect of that
wound. He fumbled out into the
open. He sat down and cried, looking
helplessly at the darkness and the
forest around. He rolled on the
ground, seething with frustration,
muttering curses.
If one cared one could make out
the theme of his blabbering: The ras-
cal Bahadur had given him the final
slip, suddenly rendering his five-
year-old enterprise futile. What was
he to do? How to satisfy his smoul-
dering wrath?
Those who heard him hardly un-
derstood the significance of his out-
burst.
Vilas Singh had kept on sitting on
the hillock for the whole night.
Neither the mist soaked in the peace
of the stars nor the breeze conveying
the calm of the forest could cool
down the burning within him.
It was a little before sunrise,
while his eyes were still fixed on the
forest, that he remembered
Hidamba Baba. The Baba’s abode in
the forest, at the foot of mount Lu-
vurva, was not far.
* * *
Vilas Singh felt the weight of the
accumulated sleep he had managed
to keep at bay, as soon as he had
reached the periphery of his village.
Two months of stay with Hidamba
Baba had diminished his inner burn-
ing, although his urge for vengeance
had not been rooted out.
And he did not wish it to be
rooted out. The opportunity for tak-
ing revenge on Bahadur, despite his
death, was still open. Hidamba Baba
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
alone could have given such an
assurance.
Of course, he must wait.
“Vilas! Back at last!” He was
warmly greeted by the villagers.
“There is hardly anything left of
your mother, continuously weeping
on your account.”
“And what about that unlucky
girl your mother brought home?
How could you afford to disappear
without even notifying that sweet,
sweet wife within months of the mar-
riage? What was her fault? What had
she done to deserve this?”
Vilas Singh pushed forward,
head hung, through a shower of com-
ments at once pleasant and bitter. He
alone knew what his newly wed
wife’s fault was. She was gradually
casting a spell on him. Had he sub-
mitted himself to her enchantment
for a little while more, he would have
forgotten his mission. He had to flee
suddenly.
“Welcome home now—home
with a difference. You have proved
yourself sneaky and treacherous. But
come and see the surprise we have in
store for you,” said an elderly lady.
At last he realised, while climb-
ing the steps, that he had become a
father since a month. He was being
led to have the first glimpse of his
son.
He was thrilled. Instantly he took
a decision to do his best to sustain
“There was a
shriek. It was
from Vilas Singh,
the architect of
that wound. He
fumbled out into
the open.”
98
that sensation as long he could—
forever if possible. For that it was
necessary to drive all the corroding
impulses out of his heart.
He was willing to do that.
A number of women were there
to welcome him into the inner
quarter. His wife stood up, pulling
down her veil to cover her face.
The child lay asleep in a swing.
His heart throbbing in excite-
ment, Vilas Singh cast his first ever
look on the child.
Suddenly he felt like a dozen
thunderbolts blasting his head. He
rubbed his eyes and looked again.
No, his eyes had not deceived him.
Still he made a desperate attempt
at appearing composed, and brooded
upon the geographical situation of
his village. Was it really in the north-
eastern direction when viewed from
Luvurva? Alas, it was.
Hidamba Baba, the tantrik clair-
voyant, had assured him that Ba-
hadur’s soul would creep into an
infant that was about to be born in a
village situated to the northeast of
the forest. Further, with a meaning-
ful snicker he had whispered to him
that it should not be difficult for him
to recognise Bahadur in that infant,
for, the new born soul would reveal
its identity by sporting a mark which
Vilas Singh cannot fail to identify.
Vilas Singh looked at the infant’s
forehead for the third time. The
mark was a delicate miniature of the
wound he had once inflicted on
Bahadur.
He tried to retreat into a room,
but could not. He collapsed, while
the women were tickling the infant
to make it smile. $
Originally titled “Shatru”, the story
was included in Manojdasanka
Katha O Kahani, the first ever collec-
tion of short stories in Odia literature
to receive the Sahitya Akademi
Award in 1972. The English version
was first included in Vengeance and
Other Stories (National Book Trust,
1980).
Story selected by Mini Krishnan.
 HI ST O RY

Tipu in Malabar
Tipu Sultan’s largesse to temples as recorded in the 19th century Inam
Registers of Malabar shows that he was sensitive to the religious
sensibilities of Hindus. B Y V I K H A R A H M E D S A Y E E D I N K O Z H I K O D E

THE Congress government in documents, is a set of seven registers have archived for posterity the minu-
Karnataka led by Chief Minister Sid- dating to the 19th century, compiled tiae of the process of renewal of in-
daramaiah has marked the birthday by J.W. Robinson, the Inam Com- ams in the region.
of Tipu Sultan on November 10 as missioner of Malabar. The seven The registers are long and broad
“Tipu Jayanti” for the past three British-era taluks the Inam registers and the calligraphy is stylised to the
years. While Tipu is honoured as a pertain to are Ernad, Choughuat, point that at first glance all that one
freedom fighter for opposing the Old Betatnad, Calicut, Kurum- can discern is a series of neatly
British in the Anglo-Mysore Wars branad, Valluvanad and Wynad. slanted squiggles.
and dying on the battlefield in 1799, (These taluks have been absorbed The register pertaining to
there are intense protests against into various districts in modern Ker- Choughuat taluk (also known as
this event as well. The protests are ala.) An “inam” is a gift, and inam Ponnani) lists nine temples whose
led by a wide array of bodies that land is land given as a tax-free grant inam lands were renewed. Of this,
draw their support from the to an institution or an individual, the largest land grant (of 613.2 acres)
Hindutva ideology spearheaded by usually in perpetuity unless it is res- that was renewed belonged to the
mainstream politicians of the Bhar- cinded, as happened all over India Guruvayur temple in central Kerala.
atiya Janata Party in Karnataka. through various land reform laws A close perusal reveals that the text
They allege that Tipu was a religious after Independence. The registers lists the beneficiary as Uralers, or
bigot whose reign was marked by the
plunder of temples and forceful con-
versions of Hindus to Islam.
There are allegations that Tipu
forcefully converted non-Muslims in
three parts of his domain: first,
among the Kodavas of Kodagu in
modern Karnataka; then among the
Nairs of Malabar in present-day
north Kerala; and the Christians of
Mangalore (now Mangaluru) in
coastal Karnataka. Frontline has dis-
cussed the broad reign of Tipu Sultan
and his legacy (“Contested legacy”,
December 11, 2015) and scrutinised
the allegations of religious excesses
made against him in Kodagu (“Tipu-
V . S R E E N I V A SA M U R T H Y

Fact & Fiction”, January 6, 2017).

This essay attempts to analyse the
allegations made against Tipu Sultan
in Malabar.

THE INAM REGISTERS

Deep inside the Regional Archives of K A R NA T A K A C H I E F M I NI S T E R Siddaramaiah paying tribute to Tipu Sultan
Kozhikode, amid lakhs of valuable in Bengaluru on November 10.
99 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 V I K H AR A H M E D S A Y E E D
T H E I N A M R E G I S TE R sprawls across the reading room at the Regional Archives of Kozhikode.

trustees, of the “Guruvayur Kshet- bundles of these land revenue re- stantial land grants he made to sev-
ram”. cords, each around 100 pages. The eral temples. This is valuable
The extended note reads: “A sum pages are slightly frayed but the evidence to counter reductive
of Rs.1,428-9-2 [rupee-anna-paisa] script is legible. These records in the Hindutva propaganda that alleges
appears to have been allowed for the Modi script are a gold mine for aca- that Tipu was a religious bigot whose
support of the temple by Tippu Sul- demics interested in the land re- ambitious expansionist ventures
tan and continued by the British forms carried out by Hyder Ali and were only a jehad to spread Islam by
Government upto 1841, when the ne- Tipu Sultan in Malabar, which had a destroying temples and forcefully
cessary examination was made and long-term impact on Kerala society. converting Hindus in the region.
the money allowance commuted into What is more germane to our According to an estimate made
a grant of the lands yielding an an- times, when Tipu’s legacy is hotly de- by Muhamad Ismail, details of which
nual assessment equivalent to the bated, is that the Inam Registers are available in his unpublished PhD
money grant. The lands are still held contain detailed records of the sub- thesis, 6,931.03 acres of land were
as inams and are accordingly con-
firmed as such for such time as the
conditions of the inam are fulfilled
under date the 20th Nov. 1841.” This
note was endorsed by G.A. Ballard,
the then Collector of Malabar, and
subsequently confirmed by W.J.
Blair, the then Officiating Inam
Commissioner of Malabar, on June
20, 1866. In other columns relating
to this entry, a mention is made that
the inam was first granted by Tipu
Sultan in 1776-77 and verified by the
British administration of Malabar.
The basis of the British confirmation
was the pioneering “paimash” (sur-
vey) land revenue records prepared
by the Brahmin administrative
clerks of the Mysore rulers, who
M.A. SRIRAM

wrote in the Modi script, the pre-

cursor to the Devanagari script used
to write modern Marathi.
The Archives have around 500 T H E S P O T in Srirangapatna where Tipu Sultan’s body was found.

FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018 100

 VIKHAR AHMED SAYEED
A R O UN D 500 bundles of land revenue records in the Modi script are available at the Archives.

given as inam by Tipu Sultan. Of this,

5,434.07 acres were given to Hindu
institutions and individuals, while
1,494.27 acres were given to Muslim
institutions and individuals (“Reli-
gious Policy of Tipu Sultan: Malabar
Region”, Unpublished Doctoral
Thesis, 2016).
Grants were made under three
categories: devadayam grants to 48
temples, dharmadayam grants to
seven “sathrams”, and grants to three
individuals (see table). Considering
that local Muslims known as “map-
pilas” made up about a quarter of the
population of Malabar, this stark dis-
parity in the largesse of a “religious
bigot” is startling. If anything can be
argued through these land grants, it
is that like in other parts of his king-
dom, Tipu was keenly sensitive to the
religious sensibilities of Hindu cit-
izens in Malabar as well. He wanted
to establish a long-term presence in
Malabar, and his perspicacity is evid-
ent in his support to temples.

THE MYSOREAN INTERLUDE

The late 18th century was a period of
V I K H AR A H M E D S A Y E E D

transition in Indian history. The

A P A G E of the land revenue survey

recorded in the Modi script used by
clerks of the Mysore kings.

101 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018


A P L A Q UE from a kalari school near the Guruvayur temple that records Tipu’s
arrival in the region.
A N E X T R A CT from the Inam Register that records that Tipu gave inam land
to the Guruvayur temple.
Mughals were in a state of continu-
ous decline and the East India Com-
pany had emerged as a major player
in the affairs of the subcontinent
after the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
The Marathas had established their
sway over vast swathes of the sub-
continent as well. In peninsular In-
dia, various powers were battling for
expansion of their territories. Hyder
Ali, a faujdar (military commander)
in the Mysore Army, rose to become
the de facto ruler of Mysore in 1761.
His territory was threatened by the
Marathas, the Nizam of Hyderabad,
the Nawab of the Carnatic and the
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
feud with the Zamorin of Calicut
(now Kozhikode), reached out to him
for help, providing Hyder the excuse
he needed to come to Malabar as he
had always wanted access to a long
coastline and a share in the lucrative
trade of spices. His fort in Palakkad,
around which the modern town has
developed, also dates to this era.
Tipu, the eldest son of Hyder, who
would have been a teenager at the
time, accompanied his father on this
campaign.
Hyder’s invasion was successful
and he swiftly conquered the minor
S . R A J E N DU
principalities of Malabar. The
Zamorin of Calicut, defeated and
forced to pay a tribute, committed
suicide. The disunity among the
rulers of Malabar and the disciplined
approach of the Mysorean Army led
by its cavalry were responsible for
this easy victory for Hyder, who in-
tended to march all the way down
south to Travancore via Cochin), but
the monsoon hindered his plans. He
returned after appointing a governor
called Madanna and fixing tributes
for the local chieftains. Soon after,
his outposts in Malabar were
threatened by a rebellion led by the
Nairs, who formed the fighting corps
of the Kerala kings.
V I K H AR A H M E D S A Y E E D
While this rebellion, which some
historians see as a native resistance
to a foreign ruler, was quelled, it did
lead to Hyder severely restricting the
privileges of the Nairs. Many upper
caste Hindus, including the Nam-
boodiris, the Nairs and chieftains,
fled to Travancore during Hyder’s in-
vasion.
Over the next few years, Hyder
English under the aegis of the East was fighting the marauding
India Company. The French were Marathas and the First Anglo-
also an important power that could Mysore War (1767-69) and could
not be ignored. turn his attention to Malabar again
North Kerala at the time was only at the end of 1773. This time,
broken up into several small princip- many local chieftains who had not
alities. An early estimate states that been regular with their tributes were
there were four important kingdoms not reinstated, and Malabar came to
and 42 principalities across Kerala. be directly ruled as a province of the
Hyder invaded Malabar through Mysore kingdom. Hyder’s plan of at-
Mangalore and Cannanore (now tacking Travancore was again left in-
Kannur) in February 1766. Hyder complete. A detailed land survey was
was embroiled in the affairs of done by Sreenivas Rao, the governor
Malabar indirectly from the time he in charge of civil affairs, and the land
was in Dindigul. The Raja of Palghat records at the Regional Archives of
(now Palakkad), who had a constant Kozhikode date back to this era.
102
 When Hyder came to Malabar,
several European powers, led by the
East India Company, were already
deeply involved at various levels in
local affairs as they all had trading
outposts along the coast of Malabar.
They included the English, the
Dutch, the French, the Portuguese
and the Danes. Among them, the
English and the French had substan-
tial trading interests from their bases
in Tellicherry (now Thalassery) and

V I K H AR A H M E D S A Y E E D
Mahe. During the Second Anglo-
Mysore War (1780-84), Tipu was in
Malabar fighting the English. He
was about to score a crucial victory
when he received the news of Hyder’s
death. Tipu swiftly returned to
T H I S L O C K ED passage leads to the fort of Farooqabad which Tipu wanted to
Seringapatam (now Srirangapatna),
establish as his capital in Malabar.
but his territory in Malabar was re-
stored to him as per the Treaty of
Mangalore in 1784. Malabar re-
mained a part of Tipu’s domain until
the end of the Third Anglo-Mysore
War in 1792, but he had lost control
over it by 1790. It eventually became
a part of the Madras Presidency as
Malabar district.

IMPACT OF MYSOREAN RULE

“The great significance of the Myso-
rean occupation of Kerala for more
than 25 years, lies in the fact that it
marked an era of transition from the
medieval to the modern,” writes C.K.
Kareem in his book Kerala Under
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (1973).
Although Malabar was officially part
of the Mysore kingdom between
1766 and 1792, the Mysore rulers had
only limited control for many years.
Tipu ruled the region directly only
for six years. While the period of dir-
ect rule was short, it had a long-term
impact on Malabar society. Hyder
and Tipu brought about an integra-
tion of the small principalities of
Malabar for the first time and a
feudal system of administration was
replaced by centralised rule, much
like it had been done in Travancore.
A network of roads was built in the
region for the first time. Trade and
industry flourished during the time
and European merchants who had
secured favourable terms from the
Malabar chieftains suffered as Tipu
imposed a state monopoly on a num-
ber of items, including pepper. He
D E V A D A YA M G R A N T S were tax-free inam land grants made to temples.
Dharmadayam (brahmadayam) grants of tax-free inam land were made to
sathrams (inns) for the upkeep and maintenance of Brahmins. (Source:
Unpublished doctoral thesis of Muhamad Ismail submitted to Indira Gandhi
National Open University, New Delhi, 2016.)
also attempted to build a navy here settled land revenue claims directly
and appointed the ruler of Can- with the tiller. In this way, Hyder and
nanore as the chief of his naval force. Tipu can be seen as early reformers
Perhaps the greatest impact of in land administration. The rulers
Hyder and Tipu was in the area of ensured that temple land remained
land administration. In this area one untaxed. Land settlement became
can also see the displacement of easy because the landowners—the
dominant castes, which gave rise to Namboodiris, the chieftains and the
accusations of religious bigotry. His- Nairs—had fled from Malabar to
torians have written about how there Travancore. The tenants, who were
were no land taxes in Malabar before mainly mappilas or lower caste
it came under Mysore rule. The “jen- Hindus, benefited from this.
mis” (landed aristocracy) were the Tipu also saw himself as a social
absolute owners of land with the reformer and attempted to change
tiller having no claims. The Myso- some of the traditional aspects of
rean rulers shook up this system and Nair society. For instance, he was

103 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

appalled when he found out that
Nair women cohabited with several
men. He was also disgusted by the
practice of lower caste women not
being permitted to cover their
breasts. Tipu forbade these practices,
which was resented by the Nairs,
who saw this as an encroachment on
their religious and social rights.
Nairs and Namboodiris com-
prised a fifth of the population of
Malabar and the upheaval wrought
about by Hyder and Tipu in the caste
and class privileges of these two com-
munities led to social upheaval. The
Namboodiris and the Nairs suffered
the most during the time of Tipu.
These two castes were severely af-
fected by the political, social and eco-
nomic reforms undertaken by Tipu.
Kareem writes: “It was, therefore,
the economic and social reforms that
paved the way for the accusations of
religious bigotry brought against
Tipu Sultan.” It was also easy to see
the issues of land and social reform
along religious lines, as the main be-
neficiaries of Tipu’s land reforms
were the mappilas. Some scholars
have also made connections between
the social upheaval caused due to the
Mysorean interlude and the mappila
rebellion of 1921.
PROBLEMATIC SOURCES
Mark Wilks, an officer of the East
India Company who participated in
the final storming of Srirangapatna
in 1799, recorded in his work that
Tipu warned the Nairs that if they
continued to adhere to their regress-
ive caste practices and disobeyed his
commands he would march all of
them to Srirangapatna and convert
them to Islam. The aspect of Tipu
threatening conversion is strangely
not contained in the account of Mir
Hussain Ali Khan Kirmani, the avid
court chronicler of Hyder and Tipu’s
reigns who tinged his histories with
an Islamic slant and never failed to
present Tipu as a champion of Islam.
The early works of writers like Wilks
provided the basis for later writers
like William Logan, who, as Col-
lector of Malabar, wrote the two-
volume Malabar Manual in 1887.
Much of the allegations against Tipu
regarding religious violence in
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Malabar come from this writer.
Thus, if one were to examine
closely the various sources that vilify
Tipu in Malabar, they are usually of
two kinds: first, British writers who
found in Tipu their arch villain and
exaggerated aspects of his religious
policy, and second, the writings of
local upper castes who had lost con-
siderable privileges during the
Mysore rule.
However, there are young histor-
ians like M.P. Mujeebu Rehman, as-
sistant professor in the Department
of History at the University of Cali-
cut, and Abhilash Malayil, a PhD stu-
dent at the School of Humanities and
Social Sciences, Indian Institute of
Technology Mandi, who have as-
sessed the Mysorean interlude in
Malabar history objectively by faith-
fully historicising the period rather
than seeing it in the surcharged com-
munal atmosphere of contemporary
politics.
Rehman writes in his book The
Other Side of the Story: Tipu Sultan,
Colonialism and Resistance in
Malabar (2016): “The falsified im-
age of Tipu Sultan, popularised fer-
vently by the colonial writers, in fact
was of ‘religious bigotry’. They had
realised the fact that no other stereo-
types could be so sensitively worked
out among the Hindu believers than
that of religious bigotry. Both colo-
nial and nationalist historians high-
lighted religious aspects of Mysorean
interventions concealing its political
or economic aspects. For instance,
they maintained that Tipu invaded
Malabar and hundreds of thousands
of native non-Muslims were hanged,
circumcised or exiled. Several such
statements have reverberated even
in contemporary discourse without
any substantial evidence other than
the colonial narratives.”
Muhamad Ismail writes: “It is
high time that we reinvestigate on
the basis of true historical records,
however meagre they may be,
everything that has been unleashed
against Tipu Sultan and the Mysore
administration. It has been proved
by recent historians engaged in the
study of the Sultan’s history that the
descriptions of the widespread ar-
son, loot and violence that the
104
Hindus of Malabar faced at the
Mysorean interlude were mostly fal-
lacies of imagination or the result of
the retaliation of the Sultans against
rebels.”
Tipu was aware that he was a
Muslim king while his subjects were
mainly Hindu and he legitimised his
reign through generous support to
temples in his domains. As the Inam
Registers have shown, Tipu gave
generously to the temples of Malabar
as well and none of his actions sug-
gest that he was a religious bigot.
S. Rajendu, a Palakkad-based
historian and author of Mysore
Padayottam-Irunnoottiyanpathu
Varshangal (Mysore Rule-250
Years) (2017), says: “There are in-
stances of Hyder and Tipu plunder-
ing temples but that was only
because wealth was hoarded in the
temples in Malabar. There was no
conception of nation or religion at
the time that motivated the ruler’s
actions.”
This become evident when we see
that mappilas like Athan Gurukkal
of Manjeri also revolted against Tipu
in 1788-89 and Tipu suppressed this
rebellion with the help of Ravi
Varma, who belonged to the Zamor-
in’s family.
Tipu intended to have a long-
term base in Malabar and even
began to build a fort at a place that he
founded some distance from Calicut
called Farooqabad (now Feroke).
Construction began at the site when
Tipu visited Malabar in 1788, but it
was never finished as Tipu’s forces
were driven out before it could be.
Locals who have seen the site say that
the foundations and initial construc-
tions are still visible, but access to the
site is now blocked as the path lead-
ing to the fort falls in a site that is
being legally contested. A sign from
the Kerala Department of Ar-
chaelogy at a locked gated passage
greets visitors attempting to look for
the fort of Farooqabad, the capital
that Tipu planned for his province of
Malabar.
Soon, Tipu would cede his claim
on Malabar and in 1799, this last
bulwark against the great expansion
of the East India Company, would be
killed on the battlefield. $

Stuff of dreams
Shashi Kapoor (1938-2017) was Hindi cinema’s most good-looking
actor, but his persona was even more handsome. B Y Z I Y A U S S A L A M
IF one were to compile a list of
Hindi cinema’s best-looking men,
Shashi Kapoor would be the unan-
imous choice to begin it with. His
cheerful eyes kept sorrow at a dis-
tance from his face. His smile, ex-
tending from ear to ear, and his
inimitable onscreen sprightliness
lingered long after the show. The rub
of his hands conveyed that
everything was fine with the world.
OB ITU AR Y
A N U P U S H K A R NA
His face was meant for love and all
the joys of life, melancholy was best
avoided. Indeed, he was the kind of
guy girls could take home to meet
their mother, with the added ele-
ment of mischief enhancing his ap-
peal.
Yet, his dashing good looks were
far from a blessing. In an industry
that revels in stereotypes, film-
makers seldom looked beyond his
105
good looks. This often translated into
a reluctance to give him a role he
could really dig his teeth into. He was
always that debonair guy who would
sing a couple of songs with a smile on
his lips, romance the heroine, exhibit
a bit of wit, and finally be the winner.
No disguises. No debate. Warm fa-
miliarity. Comfortable predictabil-
ity. Yet the masses loved him.
Whether it was “Le jayenge, le jay-
enge, dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge”
in Chor Machaye Shor (1974) or
“Likhe jo khat tujhe” in Kanyadaan
(1968), the multitudes believed he
was born to romance. Violence, an-
ger and frustration were not for him.
It was always about love. And so good
was he at expressing the emotion
that films such as Jab Jab Phool
Khile (1965), Kanyadaan and Aa
Gale Lag Jaa (1973) became box-
office hits purely on the strength of
his charisma. His heroines, ranging
from Babita to Nanda and later
Neetu Singh and Rakhee, would at
best play second fiddle in this unal-
loyed expression of the best human
emotion.
His looks were best exploited in
the timeless Yash Chopra film, Kabhi
Kabhie. In the title song “Kabhi kab-
hie mere dil mein khayal aata hai”,
the camera pans Amitabh Bachchan
in many a long shot, giving ample
space for the scenery—the trees, the
fallen leaves—and concentrates only
occasionally on his looks. When it
comes to Shashi Kapoor, it is all
about capturing his visage, his
twinkling eyes and his radiant smile.
So much so that he seems a better
friend of the camera than the lead
female actor, Rakhee Gulzar.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 Before Kabhi Kabhie, Shashi Ka-
poor was chosen to play the honest
cop who nabs his brother (Amitabh
Bachchan) who is a smuggler, in
Yash Chopra’s Deewar. Again,
Shashi Kapoor was chosen because
he could play a dashing and clean
police officer, not necessarily a guy
who could dirty his hands in the un-
derbelly of crime. Yet, Shashi Kapoor
left an indelible mark in a film in
which Salim-Javed’s dialogues were
meant to showcase Amitabh
Bachchan as the angry young man.
When the film went on to complete a
golden jubilee, people were unanim-
ous about Bachchan’s ability to carry
off a role where he expressed the an-
guish and the anger of the masses.
Yet, not many could recall any of
Bachchan’s well-rendered dialogues
in the film. The one they re-
membered the most was mouthed
with uncanny ease by Shashi Kapoor,
“Mere paas maa hai”. More than 40
years after the line was spoken, it
lives on and on, merely underlining
the undoubted ability of Shashi Ka-
poor to deliver when presented with
an opportunity. Such opportunities
were few and far between. More of-
ten than not, Shashi Kapoor was the
handsome guy who could do little
else than sing and drool over the
leading lady. The best example of this
is seen in Raj Kapoor’s Satyam
Shivam Sundaram (1978), a film
where he was not more than a prop to
Zeenat Aman’s unbridled charm.
Yet, he managed to sneak in briefly
when he appeared bare-chested,
standing under the waterfall in the
song sequence “Yashomati maiya se
bole nandalala”. However, when he
took to fisticuffs or picked up a gun in
films such as Trishul (1977) and Kala
Patthar (1979), the best place to look
was elsewhere. He was not made for
sterner stuff.
Shashi Kapoor never carped and
complained about his limitations as
an actor or the denial of opportunity.
Like water in full flow, he decided to
find his own way. It came in the form
of his tryst with English films such as
The Householder (1963),
Shakespeare Wallah (1965), Heat
and Dust (1983) and In Custody
(1993). Shashi Kapoor was the first
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
S H A S H I K A P O O R , Nirupa Roy and Amitabh Bachchan in “Deewar”.
Indian actor to bridge the great East-
West divide. Later, he notched up
another first: becoming the first
actor to try his hand at parallel
cinema. Even as he acted in numer-
ous mainstream Hindi films in the
1970s and the early 1980s, he found
space and stamina to produce films
such as Junoon (1978), Kalyug
(1981), 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981),
Vijeta (1982) and Utsav (1984).
Incidentally, though Shashi Ka-
poor started as an adult star with
Dharmaputra in 1961—he had acted
in Aag (1948) and Awara (1951) as a
child artist. It was in the 1970s that
Shashi Kapoor became a reliable
name at the box office. Whether he
delivered solo hits, or was cast in
multi-starrers, he was the most pro-
lific in the 1970s, even up to the early
1980s. Starting with Sharmeelee
(1971) with Rakhee in the female
lead, there was hardly a year when
cinema halls did not screen Shashi
Kapoor’s films. Sharmeelee was fol-
lowed by Siddhartha (1972), a
United States film production based
on the Herman Hesse novel. Then
came Chor Machaye Shor, Roti
Kapda aur Makaan (1974), Chori
Mera Kaam (1975), Prem Kahani
(1975), Deewar (1975), Kabhie Kab-
hie (1976), Fakira (1976), Imaan
Dharam (1977), Trishul (1978),
106
Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978),
Kala Pathar (1979) and Duniya
Meri Jeb Mein (1979). In the 1980s,
he did Do aur Do Paanch and Shaan
(1980), Silsila (1981) and Namak
Halal (1982), to name a few. They all
proved one thing: Shashi Kapoor
was very much a bankable star. Many
loved him, most admired him,
nobody hated him.
SEAMLESS TRANSITION
However, the worth of the 1970s and
early 1980s went way beyond box of-
fice pickings, for this was the time
when he assisted his brother,
Shammi Kapoor, in his directorial
debut Manoranjan (1974). It was
also the time he started his own pro-
duction house, Film Valas, in 1976
and produced Shyam Benegal’s Jun-
oon. The film was a literary treat.
Based on Ruskin Bond’s novella A
Flight of Pigeons, it had dialogues by
luminaries such as Ismat Chughtai
and Satyadev Dubey. He went on to
produce Kalyug, again directed by
Benegal, and Utsav, directed by Gir-
ish Karnad. These were followed by
New Delhi Times with director
Ramesh Sharma and briefly Gulzar’s
Ijaazat. The movies underlined his
utility as an actor and proved that
Shashi Kapoor could surmount his
good looks, leave his stardom behind
W I T H J E N NI F F E R Kendal (second row, left) and other cast of Shakespeareana. (Right) In “Janwar aur Insaan”.
and don the mantle of an actor. If he
did not do it often enough, the fault
lay with the film-makers, as exempli-
fied by Manoj Kumar’s choice of Ka-
poor to play a fair-skinned prince in
Kranti. His transition from main-
stream film-makers such as Prakash
Mehra, Manoj Kumar, Yash Chopra,
Ramesh Sippy and Shakti Samanta
to art-house bigwigs such as Shyam
Benegal, Girish Karnad and Aparna
Sen was seamless. As was his switch
from Hindi films to English ventures
with Ismail Merchant and James
Ivory.
Shashi Kapoor had no hang-ups.
If in commercial cinema he did not
mind playing second hero to Amit-
abh Bachchan in more than a dozen
films, and to Rajesh Khanna in Prem
Kahani and Alag Alag (1985), he was
happy to do a small part in director
G.V. Iyer’s Swami Vivekananda
(1998), which was basically an ode to
Mithun Chakraborty’s skills as an
actor. In fact, it is his ability to con-
quer his ego and play a smaller role
with aplomb that stood out in his
career. Not many would have agreed
to play a minor character in director
K. Ravi Shankar’s Sindoor (1987),
again a heroine-oriented film with
Jayaprada in the lead role and Shashi
Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor and Jeetendra
sharing screen space with her. The
handsome man of Hindi cinema had
no compunctions about etching out
the role of a greying, pot-bellied hus-
band of a young woman. Roles could
be pivotal or peripheral; he could
hold his own without making his co-
stars insecure. Unfortunately, it was
in the 1980s that his life changed
beyond recognition. With his wife
Jennifer Kendal’s death, Shashi Ka-
poor was left with the care of three
little children. He never fully over-
came the loss of his wife, and ended
up putting on undesirable kilos.
Commando (1988) and Ajooba
(1991), which he produced and direc-
ted, were all that he was left with.
Shashi Kapoor was consigned to
memory sooner than he deserved to
be and much earlier than his fans
anticipated.
Despite his love for the cinema, it
was theatre that fascinated Shashi
Kapoor. Inspired by Jennifer
Kendal, he took Prithvi Theatre, the
repertory company started by his
father, Prithviraj Kapoor, in 1944, to
great heights. The son gave it a per-
manent address, and a place for all
lovers of theatre to call their own.
Shashi Kapoor’s daughter, Sanjana,
took over the management of Prithvi
Theatres after the death of Jennifer
Kendal, resisting the charms of
cinema to concentrate on the me-
107
dium. Shashi Kapoor was so keen to
get theatre to be a self-reliant me-
dium that he used to pay for his ticket
at Prithvi Theatre. This was his way
of paying back his father for the fam-
ily name and the skills as an artiste
that he inherited.
Shashi Kapoor’s contribution to
cinema and theatre was acknow-
ledged quite belatedly with the con-
ferment of the Padma Bhushan in
2011 and the Dadasaheb Phalke
Award in 2014. These were an addi-
tion to the National Award for the
Best Film (1979) and Filmfare award
for Best Film (1980) for Junoon and
the National Award for Best Actor
(1986) for New Delhi Times. The
awards were a mere reiteration of
Shashi Kapoor’s talent and commit-
ment to cinema. He was a rare hu-
man being who did not allow his
stardom to overpower him. He al-
most always returned a journalist’s
call. His fans in Peshawar (Pakistan)
held a condolence meeting and put
up huge posters and billboards
across the city—a testimony to his
popularity on the other side of Pun-
jab.
Shashi Kapoor was confined to a
wheelchair in the last years of his life,
but he will always be remembered as
a hero who made dreams not just
possible but plausible. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

From worker
to leader
Sukomal Sen (1934-2017), a stalwart leader of the working class
movement, a scholar and a visionary, spent his whole life in the
social and political struggle against capitalist exploitation and
for social justice. B Y T . K . R A J A L A K S H M I
ON November 22, the trade
union movement lost one of its lead-
ers of international repute. Sukomal
Sen, a two-term member of the Rajya
Sabha and a vice president of the
Centre of Indian Trade Unions
(CITU), breathed his last at 83 in
Kolkata. Sukomal “da”, as his com-
rades fondly called him, was specially
known for organising State govern-
ment employees in the country. He
was one of the founder-leaders of the
All India State Government Employ-
ees’ Federation (AISGEF). At the
time of his death, he held office as an
ex officio member of the central com-
mittee of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) and was the chair-
person of the control commission
that dealt with organisational issues.
Describing Sen’s demise as an
“irreparable loss” in the context of
the “ideological and physical offens-
ive” on the working class, Tapan Sen,
general secretary of the CITU, said
that the “country had lost a stalwart
leader of the working class move-
ment as well as a scholar, a visionary
and a great teacher”. Paying homage
to Sen, the Polit Bureau of the CPI
(M) stated that he was “the organiser
and builder of the State government
employees’ movement in the coun-
try” and was a “committed Marxist-
Leninist and an outstanding trade
union leader”.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
OB ITU AR Y
K.K. NAJEEB
S U K OM A L S E N , 2013 picture.
Sen cut his teeth in trade union-
ism as a government employee in
West Bengal where he began his ca-
reer in 1955. In 1960, the AISGEF
was formed, with him as one of its
founder-leaders. Himanshu Sarkar,
former office secretary of the
AISGEF, told Frontline from Kolk-
ata that Sen attended night classes to
do his master’s in English literature
from Kolkata University. With a gov-
ernment job and trade union work,
that was the only time he could spare
for his academic pursuit. In 1971, the
Congress government in the State
dismissed him from service. He was
reinstated six years later when the
108
Left Front came to power in the State
with Jyoti Basu as Chief Minister.
Sarkar remembers Sen as “fear-
less like a true communist” and being
close to Jyoti Basu. The former West
Bengal Chief Minister, who organ-
ised railway workers before plunging
into parliamentary politics, was an
ally of the State government employ-
ees. Sen reciprocated his loyalty and
friendship with a two-page note on
Jyoti Basu in the book documenting
the history of the AISGEF. In 1979,
Sen took charge of Employees
Forum, the monthly organ of
AISGEF and was its editor until his
death.
In 1982, on being elected general
secretary of the AISGEF, he took vol-
untary retirement from government
service and became a “whole-timer”
devoting all his energies to strength-
ening the Left and democratic trade
union movement among State gov-
ernment employees. His tenure as
general secretary continued until
2009. Sen was also a member of the
Rajya Sabha for two terms (1982-
1994).
In 1996, he was elected the sec-
retary general of the Trade Union
International of Public and Allied
Employees and continued in office
until 2009. In 2011, he documented
65 years of the World Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU) in the article
“International Working Class Move-
ment: Dynamics of Class Struggle vs
Class-Collaboration and Birth of
World Federation of Trade Unions”.
BEYOND SECTIONAL
INTERESTS
Apart from his organisational skills,
it was his ideological clarity on work-
ing class issues that made him stand
apart. Trade unions, he believed, had
a larger role—that is, going beyond
the struggle for the economic in-
terests of the workers and changing
the social framework and establish-
ing socialism, which would result in
their complete emancipation. “The
working class becomes the first vic-
tim of an all-capitalist offensive,”
wrote Sen somewhat perspicaciously
in the work outlining WFTU history
and called upon the organised sec-
tions of the working class to mobilise
other sections of the working class
too.
Sen recognised the fact that or-
ganising workers in the unorganised
sector was “difficult” and to “conduct
any ideological work among them”
was “tortuous”. Organising them, he
believed, was a “critical ideological
task facing the revolutionary trade
unions” which “the working class has
to accept with utmost tenacity”.
Writing the prologue of the volume
on WFTU, George Mavrikos, general
secretary of the WFTU and a deputy
in the Greek Parliament of the Com-
munist Party of Greece, described
Sen as one of the “great trade union-
ists”. He said when he was asked to
write a prologue, he felt he had “no
right to refuse”.
Explaining why such a book on
the class-oriented trade union move-
ment needed to be documented,
Mavrikos wrote: “The imperialists
target the minds of the workers in
order to shape their consciousness
according to their needs…. This is
why it is necessary for this kind of
book to be written, books written by
men of struggle, simple men, honest
men who sacrificed their whole lives
in the social and political struggle
against capitalist exploitation and
social justice.” The reference was to
leaders such as Sukomal Sen.
Sen’s painstaking documenting
of the history of the working class of
India set him apart. Translated in
many languages, including Bengali
and Hindi, Working Class of India:
History of Emergence and Move-
ment, 1830–1970 remains one of the
seminal works on trade union history
in India and one of the most author-
itative accounts of the history of the
working class in India. He dedicated
the book, aptly, to the “suffering but
fighting millions of India”. His other
works include May Day and Eight
Hours’ Struggle in India: A Political
History, dedicated to the “immortal
martyrs of Haymarket episode” and
coinciding with the centenary year of
May Day; History of the All India
State Government Employees’ Feder-
ation; Communist Manifesto and
Theory of Revolution, Its Relevance
to Contemporary Communist Move-
ment, which was written and pub-
lished in 1998 in honour of the 150th
anniversary of the Communist
Manifesto.
In the book documenting the his-
tory of May Day observations in In-
dia, he speaks about The Hindu’s
coverage of the May Day celebration
in Madras in 1923, reporting that
“there was an enthusiastic gathering
of labourers”. The newspaper gave in
great detail the speech made by M.
Singaravelu, who is credited with or-
ganising the first-ever May Day cel-
ebration in India. Those were
certainly the halcyon days when
trade union struggles occupied
prime news space.
PROLIFIC WRITER
He wrote on subjects like culture too.
The Question of Culture and Social
Revolution in Indian Society; Caste,
Religion and Indian Society; and
Fascism are among several of his
books.
A voracious reader and an excel-
lent orator, he had a deep interest in
cultural issues. Vijoo Krishnan, joint
secretary of the All India Kisan
Sabha, said Sen had an inordinate
capacity to communicate with
younger comrades and would initi-
ate discussions on topics ranging
from politics to brewing the best cup
of tea. “He was regretful of how age
had caught up with him but was ever
109
ready to emphasise the importance
of reading,” recalled Vijoo Krishnan.
Sen used to say that “mediocrity is
incompatible with a revolutionary,”
reminisced Vijoo Krishnan.
One of the areas that Sen wanted
to work on was the “exaggerated no-
tion” of the clampdown on artistic
freedom during the years when
Stalin led the Soviet Union. He was
apparently engaged in a debate with
a prominent comrade-in-arms from
West Bengal over the issue of artistic
freedom and had persuaded Vijoo
Krishnan to get a copy of Sergei Eis-
enstein’s memoirs Beyond the Stars
to bolster his view that artistic free-
dom existed in the Soviet Union. Sen
wanted to “settle” the issue with facts
and was hugely pleased after reading
Eisenstein’s memoirs. Socialist Re-
volution in Russia in 1917 to Capit-
alist Counter Revolution in 1991 was
his last major work.
VERSATILE PERSON
Former CITU president A.K. Pad-
manabhan said: “He was a unifier.
He unified State government em-
ployees which was a huge challenge
given the diversity of their back-
grounds in every sense. He was dis-
missed from service without an
inquiry. He knew the problems State
government employees faced. He
was a versatile character; a very good
teacher, a historian. He always took a
class-based approach to issues con-
fronting the working class move-
ment.”
Padmanabhan recalled two occa-
sions when Sen stood by State gov-
ernment employees when they went
on strike in Tamil Nadu, once during
M.G. Ramachandran’s tenure and
the other during Jayalalithaa’s chief
ministership in 2003. On both occa-
sions, there were severe reprisals on
employees; Sen made it a point to
address them and build their confid-
ence. He believed that the Indian
state, despite being a sovereign en-
tity, treated its employees with the
same kind of disdain that the colo-
nial government reserved for its em-
ployees. Employees were seen as “an
adjunct of the colonial machinery to
exploit and rule over the Indian
people”. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 IN ST IT UTIO NS

Bihar model beckons

Bihar Museum, a significant initiative by the State government, has the
potential to inspire similar projects across the country. But its success
hinges on the extent of functional autonomy it enjoys, financial support
and visionary leadership. B Y C . S . V E N K I T E S W A R A N

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

On October 2, Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar inaugurated the main
galleries of the new Bihar Museum in
Patna. Designed by Fumihiko Maki,
one of the most celebrated architects
in the world, and spread across
24,000 square metres on a sprawling
campus of 5.3 hectares, Bihar Mu-
seum is the largest and the most con-
temporary museum in the country,
showcasing some of its most ancient
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
T H E M U S E UM has been built as an art and exhibition space designed to house
art and archaeological objects and host contemporary art exhibitions.
and celebrated archaeological, his- tory, folk and contemporary art and
torical and aesthetic artefacts. A part the gallery titled “Girmitiya”(des-
of the museum featuring the chil- cendants of indentured Indian la-
dren’s section, with recreational and bourers) on the Bihari diaspora, are
interactive exhibits on history, wild- now open to the public. Work relat-
life and archaeology, had been ing to display mounts and pedestals,
opened in 2015. The other major gal- lighting arrangements, descriptions
leries displaying artefacts from his- and signage is still under way and is
110
expected to be completed in a few Indus Valley Civilisation, the Vedic events and institutions, several
months. period and Empire building through artists from all over the country have
During the inaugural ceremony, the late medieval and Mughal peri- made a mark on the global art scene.
Nitish Kumar reiterated his commit- ods up to the 18th century, the period This has created a huge demand for
ment to the original vision of the mu- after that will form the content of the art exhibitions, shows, museums and
seum and justified its expenditure as Patna Museum. galleries, which is, at present, catered
a long-term cultural investment that Bihar Museum is a significant to mainly by private players. Without
Bihar owes its long and glorious his- step by a State government because significant public interventions such
tory. Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar there have been very few institu- as Bihar Museum in all States, art
Singh, the Nodal Officer of the mu- tional initiatives on such a scale after and culture may soon be dominated
seum project, and his team com- the initial wave during the post-In- by corporates.
pleted the project on time, without dependence decades when “na-
deviating from its original plan. tional” institutions for art were set MUSEUM ARCHITECTURE
The museum brochure promises up. Paradoxically, the art scene has While most other museums in the
the visitor a “journey to the land seen a resurgence in all regions in the country are “heritage” structures that
where the Great Buddha attained en- past few decades; apart from new art have been converted, Bihar Museum
lightenment, where the mighty King
Asoka renunciated the practice of
conquest through war to embrace
Dhammavijay—conquest through
moral principle (and) established the
world’s first welfare state.... Since
time immemorial, Bihar has been the
epicentre of some of the greatest
thought leaders, the most powerful
empires and the most renowned
shrines of knowledge and peace...
(and) produced a historic legacy that
affected most of the Indian subcon-
tinent, and continues to inspire
present and future generations. A
number of symbols used by the In-
dian state such as the four-headed
lion capital, which is now India’s na-
tional emblem; the Dharmachakra,
used in the national flag and many
other symbols have all come from
Bihar. Apart from the great tangible
artefacts, objects and symbols, Bihar
has produced some of the greatest
universal concepts through
Buddhism and Jainism”.
Patna already houses the illustri-
ous Patna Museum, established in
1917, the third oldest museum in the
country after those in Calcutta and
Madras. It has one of the largest col-
lections of archaeological material
and artefacts, including the world-
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

renowned sculpture of the Didarganj

Yakshi, and Buddhist and Jain art
and the private collection of the em-
inent travel writer Rahul Sankrityay-
an.The two museums will function
complementarily in terms of the his-
torical periods they cover. While Bi-
har Museum will cover the D I D A R GA N J YAK S H I (3rd century BCE). This Mauryan sandstone sculpture
prehistoric and ancient period, the is widely regarded as one of the finest artefacts of ancient Indian art and is
establishment of the first cities of the currently housed in Bihar Museum.

111 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018


A T T H E C H IL D R E N’ S G A L L ER Y , which was opened in 2015.
has been conceived and built as an
art and exhibition space designed to
house art and archaeological objects
and host contemporary art events
and shows.
Architecturally, Bihar Museum
fits easily into the urban layout of old
Patna city with its wide avenues em-
anating from the administrative
centre of the capital. The museum
jells with the horizontal sweep of the
cityscape, for the emphasis in its aes-
thetics of space is not on the vertical.
Its frontage is flat and inclining in-
wards in a manner that yields to and
jells with the surrounding urban eco-
logy, offering visitors an inviting am-
bience. The “rustic” charm of the iron
panels that line its exterior add to its
majesty and unintimidating open-
ness, while the rough, weathered sur-
face vibes with the archaeological
accent of the museum.
Inside, the galleries are spread
over a large area and connected in an
organic continuum. The interiors are
cool and austere; the high ceilings,
long corridors and window panels
running parallel to it provide visitors
with a view of the gardens with its
waterfalls and sculptures. There are
also interstitial spaces that can house
installations, temporary or perman-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
ent. The lighting and space arrange-
ments are in tune with the display
and the narrative of the exhibits.
MUSEUM OF INTENTIONS
Significantly, the inauguration of Bi-
har Museum was accompanied by an
artists’ workshop involving eminent
artists from all over the country, to
commemorate the centenary of the
Champaran Satyagraha. One of the
earliest struggles led by Mahatma
Gandhi, the Champaran Satyagraha
is a remarkable episode in modern
Indian history that, according to Ir-
fan Habib, opened “a new phase in
the national movement by joining it
to the great struggle of the Indian
peasantry for bread and land”. The
economic and political import of
Gandhi’s intervention, which drew
upon indigenous political energies
for an ethical struggle against both
colonial rule and global capital, is all
the more relevant today.
Artists who participated in the
workshop included Jogen Chow-
dhury, Jatin Das, K.S. Radhakrish-
nan, Riyas Komu and Jyoti Bhatt. It
was a welcome move, considering its
political and aesthetic intent, and
also in connecting contemporary
artists with the museum and making
112
GOUTAM DEY
their works part of its contemporary
gallery. According to Nitish Kumar,
the two areas that museums should
focus on are history and science,
which he believes will nurture an un-
derstanding about history and incul-
cate a scientific temper among
students and youth. The Bihar gov-
ernment has already introduced a
scheme in this direction by giving
financial support to schools to organ-
ise study tours in which museums
like Bihar Museum will be on the
itinerary. “In five years, almost all
students in the State would have vis-
ited Bihar Museum at least once. It
will make a lot of difference in their
outlook and attitudes, providing
them a comprehensive learning ex-
perience.” Such an initiative assures
the new museum a constant flow of
visitors. Likewise, artists in the State,
too, will look to the museum to syn-
ergise the art scene and create dy-
namic linkages with the outside
world. That is where the content of
the museum, its functional dynam-
ism and open approach will be
decisive.
APPREHENSIONS AND HOPES
Himmat Shah, one of the most re-
spected artists in the country, is all
praise for Bihar Museum but is scep-
tical about its future: “[It] is the
biggest one in the country and has
been executed in an organised man-
ner. But now the challenge lies in
getting trained people to run it. Go to
any good museum in the world, Lon-
don or Tate, you will be greatly im-
pressed by the way they maintain
and develop it constantly, by wel-
coming new ideas and developing in-
novative programmes. That’s why
people keep going there…. So, a good
museum means a good collection of
art, vibrant connect with artists, art

students and scholars, and trained
hands to manage it…. In a country
where even the available art re-
sources are not understood or util-
ised properly, the challenges are all
the more huge.”
Jogen Chowdhury, artist and
Member of Parliament, aired similar
concerns: “As I am involved in a sim-
ilar museum project in Kolkata, I
know how challenging it is to realise
a project like this in the government
sector. Odisha, too, is working on a
museum project. I think Bihar Mu-
seum will be a model and inspiration
for all such initiatives in the public
sector.
“Art should not be left to private
collectors and galleries. Govern-
ments usually think of cultural in-
vestments as ‘expenditure’ and as
uneconomical. Actually it is not so.
Look at China and how they are in-
vesting in culture in a big way; for
instance, they are building around
500 new museums. They know it will
help their economy in the long run by
spurring tourism and increasing tax
revenue and so on. Museums should
not be seen as something for the elite.
Art is for humanity, it is for the posit-
ive growth of humanity as a whole.”
According to Sabyasachi
Mukherjee, Director General, Ch-
hatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu
Sangrahalaya Museum Art Conser-
vation Centre, Mumbai, “For the first
time after Independence, I see a
modern museum architecture here…
you feel like you are in a European
museum. Now that the structure is in
place, the challenges are about main-
tenance and development. In India,
we don’t have enough people trained
C HI E F M I N I S TE R N I T I S H K U M A R and Chief Secretary and Nodal Officer of
the Museum project Anjani Kumar Singh with the 0artists Bose
Krishnamachari (centre) and Subodh Gupta (right).
and experienced in museum man-
agement and curation. They have
space for ancient and contemporary
art, space for permanent and tem-
porary exhibition: so, the challenge is
how to use them effectively and cre-
atively. To run a museum of this
scale, you will need a minimum of
600 people for security, housekeep-
ing, administration and as technical
staff, art handlers, curatorial staff,
for education, restoration, research
and publication, etc. First of all, the
museum needs good leadership and
an institutional vision statement as
to how they conceive of their role and
activities. Unless you build a good
image about your institution, people
are not going to come around…. It is
all about creating a contemporary
and secular image involving differ-
ent communities and collaborating
with other art institutions and edu-
cational initiatives. Such a secular
space presupposes autonomy and
freedom in its management. I
eagerly look forward to this museum
coming up as a major cultural insti-
tution in the country.”
As Jyoti Bhatt, senior artist and
academic, says, “True, this building
itself is a work of art… it is a sort of
sculpture which can be enjoyed from
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
outside; but it is also meant to be a
functional building as it is built for a
particular purpose. So, the question
is how far it will succeed in doing so.
Most of the decisions in this country
are made by politicians, whose prior-
ities keep changing. So, there is the
question of whether it will be consist-
ently supported by changing govern-
ments. Another issue is that
governments spend money only to
create infrastructure, but do not
provide enough funds for continued
financial support to run and develop
the museum.”
The compliments, pleas and
notes of caution sounded by the
artists, scholars and museum leaders
all share a great sense of hope and
scepticism. With enough functional
autonomy, financial support from
the State and a vibrant and visionary
leadership, Bihar Museum has the
potential to become a model for the
country. For this it has to collaborate
and partner creatively with artists,
programmers, scholars, historians,
museums and galleries in India and
abroad, and trigger institutional syn-
ergies that will live up to its ideals.
One hopes it will live up to the
majesty of its architecture and the
wealth of its content. $

113 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

Obscenity of hunger deaths
The farce being played out in the name of Aadhaar has led to several
deaths because it denies the poor their right to food and therefore life.
T
HERE is no doubt that human
life is cheap in India, perhaps
more so now than ever before.
The attacks, atrocities and killings of
people from the minority communit-
ies and marginalised groups, which
have now become so common, are
particularly appalling because they
reflect a culture of impunity. Indeed,
the lack of punishment does more
than embolden the perpetrators and
those who would imitate them: it also
points to a deadening of sensibilities
not just among those in power but in
society as a whole. The murder of in-
nocents is no longer even a cause for
much outrage; the horrifying prolif-
eration of such actions begins to
deaden the collective soul, until we do
not even register some of these as the
blatant and unforgiveable acts of
slaughter that they are.
This growing apathy, this inabil-
ity to be shocked or horrified, is not
only confined to those looking away
from migrant workers being hacked
and then burnt alive, or young boys
being hurled from moving trains, or
people just transporting cattle being
lynched. It is even more evident when
it comes to recognising deaths of
people who have been denied their
rightful basic food entitlements.
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
In recent months, we have had
several cases of the deaths of very
poor people who have not received
their food rations because of the
Aadhaar-Based Biometric Authen-
tication (ABBA) system. The stories
are horrifying and painful. They
range from the tragic death of the
11-year-old-girl in Jharkhand who
died crying out for rice when she and
her family had not eaten for days; to
the rickshaw puller in Dhanbad
whose family lost the ration card
after the death of his elder brother
and so did not get rations for several
months; to the woman in Bareilly,
Uttar Pradesh, whose family says she
died of starvation after she was
denied rations by the dealer who re-
fused to provide grain until she
presented herself to give in her fin-
gerprints despite being ill; to the
Dalit brothers in Karnataka who
were denied rations for six months as
they did not have a ration card.
In all these cases, the reactions of
local and State-level officialdom
have been, if possible, even more
shocking than these terrible incid-
ents. The attempt is first to attribute
the death to some disease. After a
temporary outcry, the news of one
such incident is quickly taken over by
114
news of several more, until we grow
used to these and even seek to excuse
them as the inevitable collateral
damage of the current system of
“governance” that has unilaterally
decided on the primacy and infallib-
ility of this particular system. The
mainstream media, meanwhile, is
too busy getting outraged about what
one politician may or may not have
said about another leader to focus on
such a paltry matter as yet another
death of another hungry person.
Make no mistake: this is murder.
And all those who are involved in the
complicated legal and regulatory ac-
tions that have denied people their
right to food and therefore life are
complicit in such murder.
It matters not whether official-
dom seeks to blame the deaths of
such people on “illness” or some
other such cause. Starvation need
not always be the direct killer; med-
ically, hunger weakens the body such
that illnesses can take over. The
point is that these were all very poor
people and they could not get what
they were entitled to under the Na-
tional Food Security Act (NFSA) be-
cause the government imposed
restrictions in the form of biometric
authentication and Aadhaar-seeding
of all ration cards. In Jharkhand, for
example, the Aadhaar-based authen-
tication system was made compuls-
ory for the issue of foodgrains in
August 2016, and is now operational
in around four-fifths of the ration
shops in the State. Later, it went even
further and ordered the cancellation
of all ration cards that had not been
“seeded”, or linked with Aadhaar,
along with some other States like Ra-
jasthan and Karnataka. This has led
to the loss of ration cards for lakhs of
families across these States.
Even the Central government’s
Department of Food and Consumer
Affairs issued a notification on Feb-
ruary 8, requiring individual benefi-
ciaries having ration cards under the
NFSA “to furnish proof of possession
of Aadhaar number or undergo
Aadhaar authentication to receive
subsidies under NFSA”, and re-
quired all beneficiaries to apply for
Aadhaar numbers by June 30. Note
that this order was issued even as the
court proceedings on the Aadhaar
Act and on the right to privacy were
still ongoing.
The government has claimed de-
lightedly that this had meant that
there has been a massive “savings” or
reduction in the amount spent on
food subsidy as a result—and this
false belief is echoed by various oth-
ers who believe that any reduction in
the expenditure on the NFSA is a
cause for celebration, regardless of
the nature of exclusion and its im-
plications. But, in fact, the costs of
this supposed saving are hard to es-
timate or compare, since they are
measured in lives, and in denial of
access to food of some of the most
vulnerable people in society, pre-
cisely those whom it most behoves
the government to protect.
For example, surveys undertaken
in Ranchi district alone have found
that since January 2017, around 20
per cent of those households with
ration cards had been unable to ac-
cess their food rations because of the
failure of the biometric authentica-
tion system. State-wide, that would
amount to around one million
households being deprived of their
food rations. Typically, those ex-
cluded are those who are the most in
need of it, as the surveys found: wid-
ows living alone, elderly couples,
families in remote areas with poor
transport and communication links.
Investigations by journalists have
found many other examples of some
of the poorest and most deprived
families being hit by this require-
ment and losing out on their rations,
either because they are unaware of
the requirement or because they
have not been able to have the card
made or because the biometric tests
have failed (a common feature for
manual workers and elderly people,
whose fingerprints do not remain ex-
actly the same) or because of some
other reason beyond their control.
Just consider the many hoops
that now have to be jumped through
by the poor in India, simply to receive
the food rations that are their basic
entitlements under the NFSA. The
household and all its members
should enrol for Aadhaar and have
proof of their application. The bio-
metric data must be recorded cor-
rectly and the data inserted into the
Aadhaar card should contain no mis-
takes. (This, incidentally is not as
simple as it sounds. In the case of this
writer’s own mother who is 89 years
old, the UIDAI [Unique Identifica-
tion Authority of India] authorities
misspelled her name twice and put
incorrect details into the Aadhaar
card through sloppy typing, and it
took months of effort to get the mis-
takes corrected. If this can happen in
the capital city of Delhi to the widow
of a former senior government offi-
cial, imagine what happens across
the country to less privileged people.)
The Aadhaar numbers must then be
seeded into their ration cards.
Then comes the actual purchase
of the foodgrain at the ration shop.
For this to occur, the authentication
process requires power supply, a
functional point of sale machine,
mobile and Internet connectivity,
the servers of the State and Central
Data Repository to be functioning
and easy to access, and the finger-
print verification to be successful.
Any one of these steps failing means
that the person—and the house-
115
hold—are denied their food rations.
Apart from these technical
glitches that can prevent people from
getting their entitlements, other ma-
chine or human errors can result in
people being deprived. There was a
reported case, again in Jharkhand, of
a 64-year-old woman who died of
hunger and exhaustion after the
Aadhaar-based payment system
mistakenly mixed her details with
someone else’s. She was not only
denied her ration, but her pension
payment was redirected to another
person’s account.
The Central government’s own
official Economic Survey 2016-17,
Volume I, noted that the exclusion
error in the public distribution sys-
tem for food was as high as 40 per
cent. In other words, nearly half of
those who deserve to receive food
rations under the government’s own
stringent criteria did not receive it.
Imagine how much worse the situ-
ation will be now that the process of
getting food rations has been made
so much more difficult.
According to the Economic Sur-
vey, leakages from the system, which
are presumably what the Aadhaar-
based system seeks to plug, were re-
portedly less, at around 34 per cent.
Ironically, these leakages are not
controlled by the Aadhaar-based de-
livery system since most such leak-
ages come from quantity fraud,
whereby the quantities sold to people
are less than their entitlement, and
the rest is sold elsewhere. Some tech-
niques such as computerised weigh-
ing systems have been found to be
effective in limiting such fraud, but
these require systems to monitor the
transport and sale of grain, not sys-
tems that put the onus on the recipi-
ents and punish them for mistakes.
The fact that the Central govern-
ment and some State governments
can continue to insist on a system
that has so many flaws and so many
dire implications for people is bad
enough. What may be even worse is
that the rest of us—the media, the
judiciary, society in general—by al-
lowing this to happen, are complicit
in this injustice and in causing these
unnecessary tragedies. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Delinquency is in the air
S C H OO L CH I L D R EN , wearing masks, take part in an awareness march on
the alarming levels of air pollution in Delhi. A study establishes the link
between exposure to toxic air and delinquent behaviour.
TOXIC air is already linked to respirat-
ory troubles and increased cardiovas-
cular risks. But two independent
studies released in December point
out that the damage caused by air pol-
Parkinson's gene
FOR more than a decade, scientists
have known that certain mutations in
a gene called LRRK2 are the most
common genetic cause for late-onset
Parkinson’s disease, a progressive
disorder in which neurons in the brain
are lost over several years. But the
exact mechanism was hitherto un-
known. Significantly, in certain Asian
populations, specific variants of
LRRK2 are known to lower the age of
onset.
Now a team of researchers led by
the neuroscientist Sandhya Koushika
at the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research (TIFR) in Mumbai has iden-
tified a critical role for the gene in the
brain. Their study, published in the
journal PLoS Genetics, shows that
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
Medicine in the State of Ohio in the
United States showed that babies born
to mothers exposed to air pollution
may have greater probability of devel-
oping birth defects, the other by sci-
entists from the University of Southern
California pointed to the higher risk of
delinquency among exposed
teenagers.
The study by the University of Cin-
cinnati College of Medicine, published
in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that
expectant mothers exposed to air pol-
lution just before conception or during
S H I V K U M A R P U S H P AK A R
the first month of pregnancy could
face the increased risk of delivering
babies with birth defects, such as cleft
lip or palate or abnormal hearts.
For the study, the researchers
used birth certificate data from the
Ohio Department of Health and partic-
ulate matter data from the United
States Environmental Protection
Agency's 57 monitoring stations
throughout Ohio. They linked the geo-
lution could trigger birth defects in graphic coordinates of the mother's
newborns and impact adolescent residence for each birth with the
brains too. nearest monitoring station and calcu-
While one study by researchers at lated average exposures.
the University of Cincinnati College of They then estimated the associ-
LRRK2 is vital for the formation of
synaptic vesicles, membranous bags
that carry neurotransmitters whose
release allows movement and other
motor activities. According to the sci-
entists, the ability to fill neurotrans-
mitters and function depends
absolutely on the composition of
these vesicles.
Using roundworm as an experi-
mental model, Sandhya Koushika and
her colleagues demonstrated that
the LRRK2 gene forms a protein com-
plex along with another gene, JIP3,
which acts as an assembly line to
AFP
form a synaptic vesicle. This as-
M U H A M M AD A LI (here with sembly line first removes unneces-
daughter Laila Ali) battled sary proteins from the membrane
Parkinson’s disease. A new study compartment following which LRRK2
finds the role of a particular gene acts to include the right proteins. Fi-
in late-onset Parkinson’s disease. nally, a specific motor which powers
118
 POLLUTION / GENETICS / CLIMATE CHANGE

ation between abnormalities at

birth and the mother's exposure to
increased levels of fine particulate
matter in the air during pregnancy.
The California study found that
extremely tiny particulate matter
2.5 (or PM2.5)—30 times smaller
than a strand of hair—is particu-
larly harmful for developing
brains; it damages the brain’s
structure and neural networks and

thus influences adolescent
behaviours.
The study, which appeared in
the Journal of Abnormal Psycho-
logy, followed 682 children living in
a particular locality in Southern
California known for foul air for as
many as nine years starting when
they were nine.
With the help of their parents,
the researchers noted whether
these children had engaged in 13
rule-breaking behaviours, includ-
ing stealing, arson, vandalism or
substance abuse.
The findings surprisingly es-
tablished the link between expos-
ure to toxic air and delinquent
behaviour.
the movement of the vesicle
to the correct destination is
attached, the study found.
Improperly formed synaptic
vesicles lead to impaired
neuron function and inability
to release neurotransmitters
and thereby trigger defects in
movement.
The study provides in-
sights into what might go
wrong in some forms of
Parkinson’s, and this un-
derstanding may help find
better treatment. Parkin-
son’s disease currently has
no cure, and the treatment
currently focusses on
symptomatic relief, which
fails to have an impact as
the disease progresses.
O C E A N A C I D I FI C A TI O N is threatening the formation of mussel shells.
Mussels face the heat
MUSSELS, a delicacy in many parts of
the world, including south India, are at
an increasing risk from climate
change. Ocean acidification, caused by
additional uptake of atmospheric car-
bon dioxide by seawaters, makes it dif-
ficult for mussels to form their hard
calcareous shells that protect them
from enemies and adverse environ-
mental conditions.
German scientists led by the eco-
physiologist Frank Melzner at the
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean
Research Kiel found that the bivalve
creatures found in tidal regions of
coastal zones are very sensitive to
ocean acidification, which leads to re-
duced calcification and shell
formation.
During their early life stages—
between the first and second day of
life—mussel larvae form a calcified
shell. But scientists who tracked the
process of calcium carbonate depos-
ition in living larvae using specialised
equipment found that the mussel lar-
vae failed to form calcium carbonate
as previously thought, said Kirti
Ramesh, doctoral student of Melzner
and the first author of the study pub-
lished in the journal Nature
Communications.
Subsequently, through laboratory
experiments, the scientists showed
that when the pH value (pH value cor-
K.K. MUSTAFAH
responds to acidic or alkaline nature
of liquids such as water, and a lower
pH value of a liquid indicates its acidic
nature and vice versa) was high, lar-
vae were able to increase calcium
carbonate production, leading to
higher calcification.
With increasing ocean acidifica-
tion, the pH values below the shell
decrease, which leads to reduced cal-
cification rates and, at very high car-
bon dioxide concentrations, shell
dissolution and increased mortality
occur, according to Melzner.
The scientists said the results es-
tablished that there was a direct rela-
tionship between the calcification
rate of mussels and the carbonate
chemistry of seawater.
As the next step, the scientists
plan to identify proteins that play a
role in the transport of calcium and
carbonate, and which organic sub-
stances in the shell increase resist-
ance to shell dissolution. According to
them, there are some mussel popula-
tions in the Baltic Sea which are more
tolerant to ocean acidification, and
studying them will help identify or-
ganic shell constituents that resist
dissolution. Understanding them will
probably help marine scientists to
breed mussels which can withstand
ocean acidification.
Stories compiled by T.V. Jayan

119 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

 SOCI AL ISS UES

Acts of intolerance
Systematic targeting of the poor, irrespective of their caste, community
or religion, shatters several families in Rajasthan and other BJP-ruled
States. B Y T . K . R A J A L A K S H M I I N B H A R A T P U R A N D D E L H I

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
S H A IS T A , D A UG H T E R of Mohammad Akhlaq who was killed on charges of storing beef at Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, in 2015,
speaks at the AIDWA convention in New Delhi on December 8.

“MEWAT mein jo musalmaanon
ke saath ho raha hai, woh Hindustan
mein kisi ke saath nahi ho raha”
(whatever is happening to Muslims
in Mewat region is not happening to
anyone in the entire country), said
Sarjit Khan, a Meo Muslim at Pahari,
a tehsil headquarters in Bharatpur
district in Rajasthan. A lone cloth
placard emblazoned with the words
“Justice for Umar” hangs on a tent
pole, seven kilometres from Ghat-
mika village in Pahari tehsil. The tent
was erected for a public meeting or-
ganised to condole the death of the
cattle trader Umar Khan, one of the
latest victims of cow vigilantism in
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
the region. Umar’s body was found
on the railway track at Ramgarh in
Alwar district on November 10. His
family got to know about his death
two days later. The police maintain
that two groups had exchanged fire
and in the ensuing clash, Umar was
killed. But they do not explain how
the body was found on the railway
track. No weapons were found on
Umar. His associates, who have been
booked under the Rajasthan Bovine
Act, also did not possess any
weapons.
“Mewat is being targeted and we
can see it happening, even sitting in
faraway Jaipur. The vigilantes need
120
no proof to establish that the cows
are being taken for slaughter,” En-
gineer Khursheed, a Jaipur-based
social worker, told Frontline.
Pehlu Khan, Junaid Khan and
now Umar Khan, the three cattle
traders who were murdered in 2017,
were all Meo Muslims from the re-
gion, which includes the Nuh (previ-
ously Mewat) district of Haryana,
Alwar and Bharatpur districts of Ra-
jasthan and some parts of western
Uttar Pradesh. Since the region is
home to Meo Muslims, it has come
under the close surveillance of cow
vigilantes.
Ghatmika has been labelled as a
village of cow smugglers and at least
200 people have been charged with
cow smuggling. But not a single case
has ended in conviction. Amra Ram,
a four-time Member of the Legislat-
ive Assembly from the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) and former
president of the All India Kisan
Sabha, said the government suspen-
ded three officials when a foreign
tourist was killed by a bull. In the
case of Umar’s death, the police were
keen to dismiss it as a result of gang
war. Some police posts in Alwar have
been designated cow vigilante or gau
rakshak posts. Umar, father of nine
children, was most likely accosted by
one such group as he was returning
home with the cattle. His wife de-
livered their ninth child four days
after his death.
A pall of gloom hangs over Ghat-
mika. Mubarak, a final year under-
graduate student, said livestock
owners were scared to rear cows. The
police, he said, wanted to be posted
in Mewat as there was “more money”
there. “The police used to harass us

P I C T UR E S : T . K . R A J A L A KS H M I
when the Congress was in power, too.
But there were no cow vigilantes
then,” said Mubarak.
In September, the Supreme
Court took cognisance of cow vigil-
antism and directed the Centre and
the States to take firm action against
such elements and called for some
A T A PU BL I C meeting in Pahari tehsil of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan
“planned and well-coordinated ac-
demanding justice for the cattle trader Umar Khan, a victim of cow vigilantism.
tion” by State governments. But the
court’s ruling seems to have been ig-
nored.
Since 2015, members of the
Muslim community have been tar-
geted in the name of cow vigilantism
and “love-jehad”. On December 6,
Mohammad Afrazul, a migrant la-
bourer from Malda district in West
Bengal, was hacked and burnt alive
in Rajsamand district by Shambulal
Raigar, a Dalit, on the suspicion that
he was involved in a relationship
with a Hindu woman. Raigar got his
14-year-old nephew to videotape the
assault and posed it on social media.
The video, in which Raigar is repor-
ted to have been heard saying, “This
is what will happen to you if you do
‘love-jehad’ in our country”, led to his D A L IT V I CT I M S of caste violence at Shabbirpur in Saharanpur district of
arrest. People wonder whether it is western Uttar Pradesh. Som Pali’s (centre) husband and son are facing
possible for Raigar to be familiar charges under the National Security Act.
121 FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
A N I T A M I N J , who lost her husband to cow vigilantes in Garhwa district, Jharkhand. (Right) Father and children of Umar
Khan, whose body was found on the railway track in Alwar district of Rajasthan.
with the term “love-jehad” but for
orchestrated efforts of some sections
to whip up communal passions. Sev-
eral instances of killing of Muslims
were reported soon after the Bhar-
atiya Janata Party headed by
Vasundhara Raje formed the
government.
In May 2015, Abdul Ghaffar
Quereshi, a meat-seller in Birloka
village in Nagaur district, was
lynched; Pehlu Khan was lynched in
April 2017 in Alwar; Zafar Islam was
beaten to death in Pratapgarh dis-
trict in June 2017 by municipal offi-
cials; and the Manganiyar singer
Ahmad Khan was murdered in Jais-
almer in September 2017 (this resul-
ted in the fleeing of 200 Muslims
from Dantal village). The more re-
cent ones are the murders of Umar
and Afrazul.
“The people who killed my father
have been given jobs in a renowned
public sector enterprise, while my
brother, who had to discontinue his
studies, is without a job,” said a
young woman at a convention on wo-
men’s citizenship rights, organised
by the All India Democratic Wo-
men’s Association (AIDWA) in New
Delhi on December 8. The conven-
tion observed that the “past three
and a half years have seen an unpre-
cedented assault on those citizens
who are unwilling to accept the
Brahmanical and patriarchal notion
of the Hindu Rashtra. Increasing in-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
stances of assassinations, lynching,
rioting, abusive trolling, and justific-
ation of attacks on the security and
right to choice of women (particu-
larly young women), along with
severe economic devastation exposes
the unholy nexus of the communal
forces with the corporate sector.”
The young woman who spoke at
the convention was Shaista, daugh-
ter of Mohammad Akhlaq, whose
lynching in September 2015, on al-
legations of storing beef, by a com-
munally charged mob in Uttar
Pradesh’s Dadri district caused a na-
tional outrage. In August, 13 of the 17
accused in the murder case were
given bail. Among the 13 was the son
of a local BJP leader. The public out-
rage failed to discourage cow vigil-
antism and minority targeting, In
fact, since Akhlaq’s murder, cow vi-
gilantes have become more brazen in
their attacks.
As Shaista shared her grief, her
brother, Danish sobbed quietly. “It
was a black night. The people whom
I called chaacha and bhaiya attacked
us.” The family moved out of Bisada
village in Dadri, which was its home
for generations. “The mahaul [at-
mosphere] isn’t good,” Danish told
Frontline.
A PATTERN
Anita Minj, a Christian tribal woman
from Garhwa district in Jharkhand,
lost her husband to cow vigilantism.
122
A tenant farmer, Ramesh Minj, had
gone to inspect his crops on August
22. He never returned. Anita did not
think there was any cause for worry
because he used to travel a lot. But
when he did not return home after a
certain time, she got worried. She
soon learnt that people from a neigh-
bouring village had assaulted her
husband accusing him of being a
“beef-eater”. He had been picked up
by the police.
“They told me gau rakshaks had
attacked him. When I saw him in jail,
he was crying. The police kept my
husband in their custody and he was
severely injured. The assaulters had
slashed him and broken his fingers.
The police taunted me when I took
food for him. They said I should give
cow meat to my husband and not
potato curry. They let my husband
die in that state. We are poor people.
What could I have done? The State
government has not given any money
by way of compensation. Some offi-
cial gave Rs.5,000 to my father-in-
law. I lost the only earning member
of the family. I have four children;
the eldest is 14 and the youngest
three years. Their future is uncer-
tain,” Anita Minj said. She has not
received the death certificate.
“My children ask me why I sent
their father to the fields that day. I
have no answer,” Anita Minj said.
Arjun Minj, a representative of the
Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha,
S H A KI R A N D S A I RA , Junaid Khan’s brother and mother. Junaid and Shakir were stabbed on the Delhi-Mathura train in
June 2017. Shakir survived the assault by the mob, but is unable to use his hand to do any work.
an organisation that led the struggle
against the Jharkhand government
for diluting land tenancy laws, told
Frontline that cow vigilantes had be-
come active in the district in recent
times. The police did not take action
against those who held gau rakshak
meetings in the district even though
the identity of these people was com-
mon knowledge, he said.
Saira, the mother of 17-year-old
Junaid from Ballabhgarh district in
Haryana who was stabbed on the
Delhi-Mathura train on the eve of
Ramzan in June 2017, is filled with
remorse for sending her son to shop
for clothes in Delhi. Saira said money
was offered to the family to withdraw
the complaint.
“Every day meetings are called;
my husband is asked to attend the
meetings, and there he is asked to
withdraw the charges. Hum insaaf
maang rahe hain aur hamare bete ki
boli lag rahi hai,” (I am asking for
justice and they are putting a price
for my son’s life) Saira said.
Shakir, who tried to rescue his
brother, was assaulted in such a
manner that he was unable to lift his
arm. “It was as if the entire train
compartment was against us,” he
told Frontline.
Shakir, who has studied up to
Class X, used to work as a driver to
supplement the family income. He
was stabbed in the shoulder and the
upper arm, and the injury has
rendered him incapable of driving.
Four of the six accused in the Junaid
murder case were let off.
VICTIMS ALL
Dalit women of Shabbirpur village
in Saharanpur, whose homes were
razed to the ground and whose men-
folk were beaten and thrown into
jail because they dared to oppose
the upper-caste Rajputs of the vil-
lage, are the other silent victims in
Rajasthan. Nearly 60 Dalit homes
were vandalised and looted. Som
Pali, one of the women, said her
husband and son were booked un-
der the National Security Act and
were sent to jail.
Subhashini Ali, a former Mem-
ber of Parliament from the CPI (M),
who visited Shabbirpur, told Front-
line that the government did not give
any compensation to the Dalit famil-
ies. The Dalits’ temple was desec-
rated and the administration did
little to repair the damage done to it
by the Rajputs of the village. “The
idea was to break them [Dalits] eco-
nomically,” she said.
Koeli Devi of Karimati village in
Simdega district was not a victim or
survivor of communal profiling. It
was an administration obsessed with
Aadhaar-linked entitlements that
caused the death of her 10-year-old
daughter, Santoshi Kumari. For the
past seven months the family was
denied ration by the public distribu-
123
tion outlet. Since Koeli Devi’s hus-
band was mentally challenged and
did not find work, Koeli Devi and her
older daughters walked 3 kilometres
every day to find work. “Saat din se
chulha nahi jalaa” (the stove was not
lit for seven days) she said. The Block
Development Officer gave us a letter
which directed the ration shop
owner to give us our quota but he
drove me away. It was on November
28. There was no food at home. My
daughter was crying. I gave her some
water with sugar and salt. She was
looking unwell. Then we took her to a
local doctor but there was nothing he
could do,” Koeli Devi said, breaking
down. In her thin emaciated arms,
she held her infant son, her latest
born.
The systematic targeting of the
poor, irrespective of their caste, com-
munity or religion, has left many
families shattered, and women are
forced to fend for themselves and
their minor children in several cases.
To say that insecurities had
heightened among the minorities
and the poor in recent times would
be an understatement.
Shaista summed it up well with
restrained sadness: “Desh ki pe-
hchaan desh ke logon se hoti hai, desh
mein insaaf hoga jab logon ke saath
insaaf hoga.” (a country is recog-
nised by the character of its people;
there will be justice only if people are
given justice) $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 POLI TIC S

Punishing dissent
The disqualification of Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari as Rajya
Sabha members under the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution ignores
the principles of natural justice. B Y V . V E N K A T E S A N

THE Tenth Schedule to the Con-

stitution, dealing with disqualifica-
tion of a member elected to either
House of Parliament or State Legis-
lature, on the grounds of defection,
envisages a quasi-judicial procedure
to be adopted by the presiding officer
of the House, whose office is expec-
ted to function like a tribunal, even if
it lacks all the trappings of a court. Its
implication is that the procedure fol-
lowed complies with the principles of
natural justice.

The disqualification of Janata
Dal (United) leaders Sharad Yadav
and Ali Anwar Ansari by Vice Presid-
ent M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is also
the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya
Sabha, on December 4 smacks of ar-
bitrariness and non-compliance
with the principles of natural justice
and ignores the Supreme Court’s in-
terpretation of the powers of presid-
ing officers in such proceedings.
On September 2, Venkaiah
Naidu’s office received a petition
from the leader of the JD (U) in the
Rajya Sabha, Ram Chandra Prasad
Singh, seeking Sharad Yadav’s and
Ansari’s disqualification under the
Tenth Schedule on the grounds that
by their conduct, they had voluntar-
ily given up the membership of the
party, thus becoming subject to dis-
qualification under Paragraph 2(1)
(a) of the Tenth Schedule.
Ram Chandra Prasad Singh’s
contention was that Sharad Yadav
and Ansari opposed the unanimous
decision of the JD(U) and its presid-
ent, Nitish Kumar, to withdraw from
the Mahagathbandhan (the grand
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
S H A R AD Y A D A V and Ali Anwar Ansari.
alliance which included the JD (U)
and the Rashtriya Janata Dal
(RJD)), and the coalition govern-
ment it formed in Bihar in 2015. Be-
sides, he alleged that Sharad Yadav
and Ansari campaigned with RJD
leaders and workers between August
10 and 12 in various districts of Bihar
and attended the public rally called
by the RJD in Patna on August 27.
Sharad Yadav allegedly violated
the directive issued by the party sec-
retary general advising him not to
attend the rally and also conveying to
him that his participation in the rally
would be construed as voluntarily
giving up the membership of the JD
(U). Ram Chandra Prasad Singh had
attached newspaper clippings, me-
dia reports and videos as proof of the
allegations. Ansari denied having re-
ceived any such directive from any-
one. He claimed that Sharad Yadav
124
V. SUDERSHAN
had directed him to attend the RJD
rally.
Sharad Yadav, in his response to
the petition, claimed that being a
founding member of the JD(U), he
had remained committed to its prin-
ciples and continued to be a member
of the party and had never intended
to, least of all voluntarily, give up the
membership of the party or form a
new political party.
He alleged that Nitish Kumar
and his faction had voluntarily given
up the membership of the JD(U) by
withdrawing from the Mahagath-
bandhan, which was formed as a
common front against the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), and sub-
sequently aligned themselves with
the BJP, thus betraying the trust re-
posed by the people of Bihar and
their mandate.
Sharad Yadav’s contention was
that the criticism of the decision of
party leaders, taken in violation of
the constitution of the party, did not
entail voluntarily giving up the party
membership.
The main issue was whether Ven-
kaiah Naidu should have referred
Ram Chandra Prasad Singh’s peti-
tion to the Committee of Privileges of
the Rajya Sabha, to conduct a pre-
liminary inquiry and submit its re-
port in accordance with previous
cases. Venkaiah Naidu dispensed
with this procedural requirement
merely because it would have caused
delay in deciding the question.
Venkaiah Naidu reasoned that it
was not mandatory to refer each and
every case to the Committee of Priv-
ileges as a matter of routine. “When
the facts of the case are clear, the
Chairman in his wisdom, may decide
to proceed in the matter on his own,”
he said in his order. He suggested
that even after the preliminary in-
quiry by the Committee, as Chair-
man, he could analyse the facts and
come to a final conclusion, which
might be contrary to the report of the
Committee. Therefore, he decided to
proceed with the determination of
the question himself, the order
stated.
But the manner of Venkaiah
Naidu’s determination of the ques-
tion left a lot to be desired. In his
response to Sharad Yadav’s com-
ments, Ram Chandra Prasad Singh
argued that the Mahagathbandhan
was merely a political alliance
formed on a common minimum pro-
gramme to fight the Bihar Assembly
elections and there was no compul-
sion on the constituents of a coalition
to remain wedded to the alliance in
spite of fundamental differences. He
questioned Sharad Yadav’s right to
question the unanimous views and
decisions of the party.
“No political party, especially the
JD (U), with strong and deep-rooted
commitment against corruption in
public life shall permit any of its
member to align himself with a polit-
ical party whose leaders are em-
broiled in corruption with serious
charges of benami property dealings
and money-laundering,” Ram
Chandra Prasad Singh stated in his
PTI
V I C E P R E S I D EN T
M. Venkaiah Naidu.
response. What he left unexplained
was why the JD(U) entered into a
Mahagathbandhan before the elec-
tions, although the charges of be-
nami property dealings and
money-laundering against RJD
leaders were known at that time.
Accepting Sharad Yadav’s and
Ansari’s request for a personal hear-
ing, Venkaiah Naidu fixed October
30 for the purpose. Both of them
sought eight weeks’ time to appear
for the oral hearing, citing campaign
for the Assembly elections in Gujarat
and Himachal Pradesh as the reason.
The Vice President gave them one
week’s time and rescheduled the
hearing for November 8. Sharad Ya-
dav requested permission to be rep-
resented by two advocates of his
choice at the oral hearing, as the is-
sues under the Tenth Schedule were
too complex for him to argue the case
himself. Venkaiah Naidu declined
the request, citing the absence of
rules and precedents. But proceed-
ings under the Tenth Schedule,
which are akin to that of a tribunal,
cannot exclude lawyers if a request is
made.
Sharad Yadav, who appeared in
person before Venkaiah Naidu on
November 8, contended that there
was no bar in Rule 7 (7) of the Mem-
bers of the Rajya Sabha (Disqualific-
ation on Ground of Defection) Rules,
1985, against a member appearing
before the Chairman through an ad-
vocate, as it is evident that the provi-
sion for being heard in person, was in
addition to being allowed legal rep-
125
resentation. Sharad Yadav cited a
number of precedents.
Venkaiah Naidu’s response to
this was bizarre. He questioned the
very rationale of legal representation
saying that as it was evident that
Sharad Yadav’s replies were pre-
pared in consultation with his advoc-
ates, he should have come prepared
for the oral hearing after consulting
them. This is tantamount to denial of
the legitimate rights of an accused
for legal representation before a
tribunal.
Venkaiah Naidu held that leav-
ing or joining any political alliance
did not fall within the purview of the
anti-defection law. He reasoned that
in a democracy, it was the rule of the
majority and the voice of the major-
ity that had to be accepted. Sharad
Yadav, according to Venkaiah
Naidu, failed to prove with docu-
mentary and other evidence that his
group commanded the majority sup-
port within the JD(U) Legislature
Party in the Rajya Sabha.
He held that if a member got
elected as a candidate of a political
party on the basis of its policies and
manifestos but criticised it publicly,
he would be deemed to have given up
his membership of the party volun-
tarily. Venkaiah Naidu, however, did
not explain whether such a member
would be deemed to have done so if
he felt that the party was working
against its policies and manifestos,
on the basis of which he got elected.
The Vice President has ignored
an important ruling of the Supreme
Court in Balchandra L. Jarkiholi vs
B.S. Yeddiyurappa (2011) that de-
mand by a party legislator for a
change in the leadership did not
amount to voluntarily giving up the
membership of the party and instead
relied on the Supreme Court’s judg-
ment in Ravi Naik vs Union of India
(1994), the facts of which were differ-
ent. A legislator in that case was
deemed to have voluntarily given up
his party membership if he joined
another political party or launched a
new one. Neither of these ingredi-
ents was applicable in the case of
Sharad Yadav and Ansari. Sharad
Yadav has decided to challenge his
disqualification legally. $
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
 CR IME

Blow to casteism
United action by progressive groups forces the hand of the government
to act decisively in the case of the “honour killing” of a Dalit youth for
marrying a girl from a higher caste. Six people, including the girl’s
father, get the death sentence. B Y I L A N G O V A N R A J A S E K A R A N

THE brutal murder at 2:12 p.m. five killers who hacked the young family friend, was given a life sen-
on March 13, 2016, of a 22-year-old man in full public view at Udumalpet tence “without any remission or pre-
Dalit engineering student, town in Tirupur district and inflicted mature release”, and Manikandan,
Veluchamy Shankar, in Tirupur, serious wounds on Kausalya when the last accused, was sentenced to
Tamil Nadu, for marrying a caste she tried to save her husband. rigorous imprisonment for five years.
Hindu girl, Kausalya, numbed the Besides the death penalty to six of Three of the accused, Annalakshmi
collective conscience of Tamil society the accused, Stephen Dhanraj (23), a (Kausalya’s mother), Pandithurai,
and also, perhaps for the first time,
unified progressive groups in their
efforts to get speedy justice for vic-
tims of what was described as an
“honour killing”. It was the united
action of these groups that forced an
apathetic State government to act.
A few such cases in the past have
taught the government a bitter les-
son. The case of the chilling double
murder of S. Murugesan, a Dalit
youth, and D. Kannagi, a Vanniyar
girl, both from Virudhachalam town,
in 2003 for inter-caste marriage has
just reached the trial stage. But the
anger Shankar’s murder generated
in society prompted the state also to
seek the support of activist groups in
order to take the case forward.
On December 12, the sessions
court in Tirupur convicted eight of
the 11 accused and sentenced six of
them, including Kausalya’s father, B.
Chinnasamy, to death. This was
made possible by the coordinated ef-
forts of activists, lawyers, prosec-
utors and investigative agencies to
help make an airtight case against
PTI

the accused.
Accused No. 1, Chinnasamy, a
financier and realtor, was the mas-
termind of the crime. He engaged
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
K A U S AL Y A 'S P A R EN T S , B. Chinnasamy and Annalakshmi, and the other
accused in the Shankar murder case coming to the court in Tirupur ahead of
the verdict on December 12.
126
(her maternal uncle) and a 16-year-
old relative of hers, were acquitted as
the charges against them were not
established. The verdict has
triggered a debate on the ethics of the
death penalty.
THE CASE
Shankar, who belonged to the Pallar
caste, and Kausalya, an
Agamudaiyar, a most backward
caste (MBC) group, were attacked by
a gang near the bus stand in Udu-
malpet allegedly at the behest of
Chinnasamy. Despite opposition
from her family, Kausalya had mar-
ried Shankar on July 11, 2015, at a
temple in Palani, from where she
hails. They lived in Shankar’s house
at Komaralingam village near Udu-
malpet despite facing constant
threats and intimidation from her
family.
The horrific killing was caught on
the CCTV camera of a nearby shop
and the footage went viral on social
media. The video evidence was the
A T T I N D I V A NA M ON JU N E 1 7 , 2 0 1 7 , Kausalya leads a march from
Salem to Chennai against “honour killings”, organised by the Tamil Nadu
Untouchability Eradication Front.
clincher for the prosecution, besides
the bold deposition of Kausalya
against her family members.
Shankar died on the way to the
Coimbatore Government Medical
College Hospital, while Kausalya
survived a head injury that required
18 stitches.
THE VERDICT
Tirupur Sessions Court Judge
Alamelu Natarajan, in her verdict,
said that the court “has analysed the
evidence adduced on the side of the
prosecution carefully and meticu-
lously”. Taking note of the gravity of
the crime and “balancing and keep-
ing in mind the rights and liberties of
the persons accused as offenders”,
the judge concluded that the facts
and circumstances of the case “are
very clear and are well corroborated
by ocular, oral evidence, medical
evidence, CCTV footage evidence,
and other documents”.
The judge, in fact, based her en-
tire verdict on one moot point. “If the
BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
127
punishment for marrying an upper
caste girl by a lower caste boy would
be only a death sentence by murder,
then what should be the punishment
for such persons, is the question
raised in the mind of the court,” the
judgment said. The judge pointed
out that courts in the country had
strongly condemned “honour
killings”, as was evident in various
judicial pronouncements.
“Still sane mind has not set on the
parents and many others who still
hail the caste system and disapprove
inter-caste marriages, sometimes in
a violent manner,” the judge noted in
the verdict. She said the five hired
killers “deserve no mercy” as it was
because of the availability of people
like them that parents were driven to
commit such violent crimes.
The charge sheet filed by the po-
lice, after registering cases against
the 11 accused under various sections
of the Indian Penal Code and the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)
Amendment Act, 2015, ran to more
than 1,000 pages. The government
appointed the veteran lawyer U.
Sankaranarayanan, a retired Deputy
Director of Prosecution, as special
prosecutor in the case. The trial was
completed in November 2017, with
the prosecution arguing the case as
an “honour killing”.
Talking to Frontline after the
murder, Shankar’s father,
Veluchamy, a labourer, said that he
had never thought the girl’s family
would go to such an extreme against
their own daughter. “When Shankar
got a job in Chennai, we thought they
would be safe there and everything
would become normal,” he had said
then.
His village is not new to inter-
caste marriages. “They are all living
happily. But this is the first time that
a girl from an MBC caste has married
a Dalit boy,” an activist said.
HONOUR KILLINGS IN
TAMIL NADU
Tamil Nadu has witnessed two sim-
ilar cases of caste killings in recent
years. V. Gokul Raj, an engineering
student from Salem who fell in love
with a girl from the Vellala Gounder
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
community, an intermediate caste
group, was found dead with his head
severed on a railway track near
Erode on June 24, 2015. Yuvaraj,
who was the leader of the Tamil
Nadu Kongu Ilaignar Peravai’s
youth wing at Sankagiri, was arres-
ted in this connection. The Deputy
Superintendent of Police R. Vish-
nupriya, a Dalit, who was investigat-
ing the case, was found hanging.
Both cases have been entrusted with
the Crime Branch-Criminal Invest-
igation Department ( “Losing battle”,
Frontline, October 16, 2015).
In 2012, a Dalit of Natham
colony in Dharmapuri, E. Elav-
arasan, who married a Vanniyar girl,
N. Divya, was found dead on a rail-
way track near Dharmapuri on July
4, 2013 (“Tragic end”, Frontline, July
26, 2013). The police maintained
that the youth had committed sui-
cide as Divya had disowned him,
though many people insisted that he
was murdered.
National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB) data, as presented in the
Lok Sabha, say that there were 288
cases of “honour killings” between
2014 and 2016 in the country. As
many as 28 honour killing cases were
reported in 2014, 192 in 2015 and 68
in 2016 (provisional data).
INTERVENTIONS
Evidence, a Madurai-based social or-
ganisation, steadfastly pursued the
Shankar murder case. A. Kadir, its
executive director, who faced life
threats for taking up the case, told
Frontline that for the past 21 months
after Shankar was killed, it had been
a nightmarish experience for him
and his team members. “We had to
fight through every stage and ensure
the safety of Kausalya,” he said.
“While pursuing the issue legally,
we, with solid support from her, mo-
bilised public opinion against such
‘dishonour killings’. Kausalya led the
campaign to success. We also have
made the State government ‘feel’ the
brutality of the crime. For the first
time, the government formed a four-
member prosecution team with
senior lawyers under the provisions
of The Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of At-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
T H E W E D D I NG P I CT U R E of
Shankar and Kausalya.
rocities) Amendment Act, 2015, to
ensure speedy justice,” he said.
Under the provisions of the
amended Act, State governments are
to prepare a panel of senior advoc-
ates who have been in practice for
not less than seven years for each
district to conduct cases filed under
the Act. States shall also set up spe-
cial courts, which have been author-
ised to take direct cognisance of such
offences and, as far as possible, com-
plete the trial of a case within two
months from the date of filing of the
charge sheet.
His team, Kadir said, had
provided the necessary inputs to the
teams of investigators and prosec-
utors from the initial stage. “Close
monitoring and stringent deterrent
provisions under the amended Act
did not allow the accused to get en-
larged on bail. They submitted bail
petitions both in the trial court and
in the High Court 58 times. None
barring one, who provided shelter to
the accused after the crime, could get
bail. Besides, to plug any loopholes,
we discussed the case with the in-
vestigating agency to prune down the
witnesses’ list to 61 from 121. And all
but one of these witnesses deposed as
per the statements they made while
filing the charge sheet,” Kadir poin-
ted out.
This, in fact, ensured that there
was no hindrance from any ex-
traneous factor. The then Tirupur
Collector and the Superintendent of
Police met the National Commission
for Scheduled Castes in May 2016
and got the necessary instructions
128
with regard to the case. The State
government also appointed three of-
ficers in the rank of Revenue Divi-
sional Officer to implement welfare
schemes for the victims, including
Kausalya. “Jobs have been provided.
The education of Shankar’s brother
has been taken care of. Their one-
room tiled house has been rebuilt
under the Green House scheme. We
have been able to convince the dis-
trict administration to give Kausalya
a monthly compensation of
Rs.11,500,” Kadir said.
Under Section 15A (1) of Chapter
IVA “Rights of Victims and Wit-
nesses” of the Act, it shall be the duty
and responsibility of the State gov-
ernment to make arrangements for
the protection of victims, their de-
pendents and witnesses against any
kind of intimidation or coercion or
inducement or violence or threats of
violence.
“It was a long-drawn-out battle
to get justice. We, within the legal
framework, got welfare schemes and
ensured justice for the victims. We
kept her in our custody until she
overcame her grief. And when she
did shrug off her victim tag, she stood
against untouchability and casteism.
When mediapersons asked her about
her father’s capital punishment, she
said firmly: ‘The accused gets what
he deserves.’”
KAUSALYA’S NEW ROLE
Kausalya has slipped into the role of
a crusader against “honour” killings
and caste-based atrocities today.
B.R. Ambedkar and E.V. Ramasamy
Periyar are her teachers. “I have in-
gested their teachings of social
justice fully,” she said. She has
floated a centre, “Shankar
Thanipayirchi Mandram” (Shankar
Special Training Centre), to educate
Dalit children on their rights. She
talks about women’s emancipation,
Dalit empowerment and rights viola-
tions. “She has evolved from a fra-
gile-looking girl into a woman of
honour and maturity,” said a woman
activist.
As a non-Dalit from a most back-
ward caste, Kausalya, Kadir pointed
out, had emerged as a “Dalit icon of
Tamil Nadu”. $

Russian Revolution
THE Special Issue of Frontline on the
Russian Revolution (December 22) read
like a fantastic story.
I was in the Soviet Union in 2013 to
participate in functions commemorating
the 20th anniversary of the Indo-Soviet
Friendship Treaty. I could see that the
edifice built by Lenin and Stalin was
crumbling. When I mentioned my appre-
hensions to a Communist Party leader,
he dismissed them saying the people
who had enjoyed the fruits of socialism
for 70 years would not desert it. This
overconfidence on the part of the party
was responsible for its turning a blind
eye to what was unfolding.
I was in a small village when enrol-
ment of students was going on. It was a
delight to see young children marching
from house to house with bugles and
drums to invite the newly enrolled chil-
dren and take them to school in a proces-
sion. Likewise when children were
returning in buses after their vacation in
resorts, it was a thrilling experience to
watch people standing on either side of
the roads clapping to welcome them
back. Children’s education and health
care were well taken care of.
S.S. RAJAGOPALAN
CHENNAI
THE Special Issue was a welcome break
from routine political stories and is a
treasure trove of information about the
1917 revolution.
The foundations of communist ideo-
logy were laid on the building blocks of
the lofty ideals of freedom, equality and
fraternity and genuine concern for the
marginalised and exploited working
class.The way to ameliorate their pitiable
LE T T E RS
conditions was first envisioned by the
iconic visionaries, philosophers and re-
volutionaries Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels at a time when the tentacles of the
oppressive systems of feudalism and
capitalism were firmly entrenched in dif-
ferent parts of the world. The October
socialist revolution of 1917 was the glori-
ous culmination of the needs and aspira-
tions of millions of Russians to break free
from the oppressive shackles of tsarist
rule, which had made life miserable for
them.
At a time when the foundations of the
modern civilised world are threatened by
terrorism,dictatorship, fascism, neolib-
eralism, neocolonialism and imperial-
ism in their various forms, the ideals that
shaped the Russian Revolution continue
to be relevant.
B. SURESH KUMAR
COIMBATORE, TAMIL NADU
A CENTURY is a long time for any revolu-
tion to take root, thrive and then decay
and so it is the case with communism as
propounded by Lenin. It was a revolt
against a monarchy with absolute
powers. Communism was advocated as a
substitute to monarchy and colonial rule
and was supposed to create a free society
where every citizen was equal.
But communism as practised degen-
erated into total control by the state over
individuals. Only the Communist Party
was allowed to function officially and op-
position to it was not tolerated. Freedom
of speech and dissent were the casual-
ties in the one-party rule. Slowly, the
disintegration of the once-mighty USSR
led to breakaway states that charted
their own policies for development.
Even in Russia, the birthplace of com-
munism, consumerism and private en-
trepreneurship as opposed to
state-sponsored development are fast
matching the advanced capitalist coun-
tries. Very few countries now proclaim
they are communist. The world has come
a long way from the rigid communism of
earlier times.
D.B.N. MURTHY
BENGALURU
IS a revolution possible in the present
era? It is unlikely because the status quo
suits the rich and vested interests, the
middle class does not have the time and
129
the poor have neither the resources nor
the inclination to bring about a revolu-
tion.
One saw the fate of the Arab Spring: it
is now history. The military of a nation
overthrowing the elected government
and the public erupting in joy, as
happened recently in Zimbabwe, is the
modern revolution. People are busy
with issues in their daily life such as
earning a livelihood and securing a roof
over their heads and do not have the
time for an extracurricular activity like a
revolution.
DEENDAYAL M. LULLA
MUMBAI
Gujarat elections
THE BJP has been ruling Gujarat for a
long time and has established a strong
base in the State, but it is facing a stiff
challenge in this Assembly election
(Cover story, December 8). Thus, it is a
golden opportunity for the Congress to
make a comeback.
JAYANT MUKHERJEE
KOLKATA
IF the BJP thinks that there are no eth-
ics in electoral battle, that is an affront
to democracy. It should not foment reli-
gious frenzy just to cover up its failures.
Destitute farmers, Dalits and Muslims
in Gujarat feel suffocated under Chief
Minister Vijay Rupani’s rule. The con-
troversies around Rupani’s business
firms, which earned an indictment from
the Securities and Exchange Board of
India, make a mockery of the BJP’s
claim that it is against corruption.
The comments of BJP leaders after
Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the Somnath
temple were in bad taste. Should not the
Prime Minister talk about the party’s
achievements rather than turning ad-
versarial?
C. CHANDRASEKARAN
MADURAI, TAMIL NADU
THE Congress fared miserably in the
2012 elections in Gujarat, and the BJP
came to power as the people supported
the political party they felt was respons-
ible for growth in the State. But now
Dalit agitations, demonetisation and
GST, among other issues, pose some
threat to the BJP coming back to power.
Rahul Gandhi’s sincere effort to correct
the lapses of the past are commend-
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018

able. The use of hate speech and the
violation of orders of the Election Com-
mission are a matter for great concern in
general.
A.J. RANGARAJAN
CHENNAI
THE citadel of the BJP, hitherto con-
sidered almost impregnable, has be-
come wobbly, and the credit goes mainly
to the young triumvirate of Hardik Patel,
Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani. They
have managed to instil a sense of confid-
ence in people who were pessimistically
reconciled to the invincibility of the BJP.
But, unfortunately, the issues of the
minorities are almost cold-shouldered in
the hustings as if they are of no con-
sequence.
AYYASSERI RAVEENDRANATH
ARANMULA, KERALA
DURING the campaign no day went by
without Rahul Gandhi and Narendra
Modi taking potshots at each other. The
BJP’s creating a furore over Rahul
Gandhi’s visit to the Somnath temple was
just a gimmick to confuse voters. Given
the Congress party’s political vulnerabil-
ities, Rahul Gandhi’s temple visit can be
said to be a wasted opportunity for him.
The BJP doing its best to expand its base
by playing the communal card to the hilt
is certain to gain the advantage.
K.R. SRINIVASAN
SECUNDERABAD, TELANGANA
SBI
THE joint venture
between Reliance
Industries Limited
and SBI to start a
payments bank in the name of the former
has ominous portents for the public sec-
tor behemoth (“A losing game”, Decem-
ber 8).
The reason for the move being trotted
out by interested parties that its purpose
is to provide banking facilities to the un-
banked is absolutely ludicrous. Ever
since the NDA government assumed of-
fice, there have been persistent attacks
against public sector banks (PSBs). The
aggressive thrust given to the payments
banks concept is intended to push PSBs
into private hands.
One wonders how the powers that be
could allow one of the largest defaulters
of loans to PSBs in the country to start
FRONTLINE . JANUARY 5, 2018
LE T T E RS
banking operations and that too in a joint
venture with India’s largest PSB. The RBI
should undertake a thorough review of
the entire process of giving licences to
private players to start payments banks.
There is no better way of taking banking
to the unbanked areas of the country
than by giving PSBs licences to open
more branches in such areas.
J. ANANTHA PADMANABHAN
TIRUCHI, TAMIL NADU
Saudi Arabia
ANTI-CORRUPTION drives by rulers will
always have people’s support (“Saudi in-
trigues”, December 8).
After 32-year-old Mohammed bin Sal-
man was named Crown Prince, he
launched the kingdom’s first anti-cor-
ruption drive in 80 years and has
emerged as the most powerful Saudi
ruler in a generation. Defying the long-
standing tradition in the country, Salman
proclaimed a decree to end the ban on
women drivers. He has also initiated eco-
nomic reforms to diversify the Saudi eco-
nomy.
KANGAYAM R. NARASIMHAN
CHENNAI
Free speech
THE article “Stifling dissent” (December
8) eloquently expressed the intolerance,
use of brute force and lawlessness being
unleashed by the Tamil Nadu govern-
ment to stop people from expressing
their bona fide views on matters of social
relevance or from supporting the victims
of economic hardship and political des-
potism. It is the nadir of the law and order
situation in Tamil Nadu when a lawyer is
not able to save himself from attacks by
the police.
Democracy relies on freedom of the
press and the freedom of individuals to
stimulate healthy debate and objective
critique of society.
B. RAJASEKARAN
BENGALURU
Tipu Sultan
THE BJP government is following in the
footsteps of the British in their use of the
“divide and rule” policy (“The past as
present”, December 8).
For political gain, members of the ex-
treme right wing are planting the seeds
of communal polarisation in the minds of
130
many Indians. The
damage this po-
larisation causes
will remain in the
minds of those
people who do not
apply their minds
and will pass on to
future genera-
tions. Whatever be
a ruler’s religion,
if he has brought
prosperity to the
nation and res-
isted foreign invaders, he has to be hon-
oured and respected, be it Tipu Sultan or
Pazhassi Raja. Many of the BJP leaders
who defame the Muslim rulers of the
past express their views without knowing
a single thing about history. As the article
said, the saffron brigade is not rewriting
history but is purposefully misinterpret-
ing it in order to create a deep separation
between Hindus and Muslims in India. It
is high time that we all realised this
cheap trick of the BJP/RSS.
Tipu Sultan is my hero compared with
Savarkar, who got out of prison by apolo-
gising to the British.
ANEES KURIKKAL
KOLAPARAMBA, KERALA
Demonetisation
THE Cover Story on demonetisation
(November 24) clearly described the
situations and problems caused by this
bad policy. Before people could recover
from the effects of demonetisation, they
had to deal with Goods and Service Tax.
I applaud Frontline for speaking out on
the situation in the country. Agriculture
is in decline and small businesses have
been ruined by GST. However, the gov-
ernment and Modi do not care about the
terrible condition of the people.
A year after demonetisation, BJP fol-
lowers have started going against Modi’s
economic initiatives. It also is providing
opportunities for the opposition to join
forces.
MUHAMMED ADIL EDAYANNUR
KANNUR, KERALA
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